Dirac Medal

The Dirac Medal for the Advancement of Physics is awarded by the University of New South Wales jointly with the Australian Institute of Physics on the occasion of the Dirac public lecture, held approximately annually at UNSW.

The Lecture and Medal commemorate a visit to UNSW in 1975 by Prof. Paul Dirac, who gave a series of five lectures. The lectures were subsequently published as a book Directions of Physics (Wiley, 1978 – H. Hora and J. Shepanski, eds.), the royalties from which were used to establish the Medal, which was first awarded in 1979. Past winners include: David Pines, Brian Schmidt, Lene Hau, Susan Scott (full list here, opens in a new window).

From 2018, the Medal/Lecture is open to external nominations, which will be shortlisted and reviewed by the Dirac committee in the School of Physics at UNSW. The selection criteria include a) distinguished contributions to physics and b) demonstrated capability to present a compelling public lecture on the physics surrounding their area of research. Nominations are open for distinguished ongoing contributions to all branches of physics including, but no longer limited to, theoretical physics.

Nominations and questions can be directed to the Chair of the Dirac Committee at:

E: diracmedal＠physics.unsw.edu.au