Jacob Bourjaily, associate professor of physics at Penn State, was honored with the Lars Kann-Rasmussen Prize for 2025 by the Niels Bohr International Academy (NBIA), in Copenhagen, Denmark. The prize is awarded annually to an exceptionally talented young individual who has had high impact in research and has or has had close connections to the Niels Bohr Institute. Bourjaily was presented the prize by Lars Kann-Rasmussen, former chairman of the board of VKR Holding and the Villum Foundation, at a Feb. 24 award ceremony attended by the head of the Niels Bohr Institute Joachim Mathiesen, Deputy Dean of Research Lise Arleth and NBIA Director Poul Henrik Damgaard.
"I am extremely grateful for the generosity and support I was given during the nearly 10 years I spent at the Niels Bohr Institute and International Academy," Bourjaily said. "Through the generosity and support of the Danish people and the Niels Bohr Institute, I was able to build and lead the world's largest team of postdoctoral scholars studying exciting new developments in quantum field theory. It is a great honor to be awarded this prize for the work that was started there."
Bourjaily was awarded the prize "for his fundamental and original contributions to quantum field theory, guided by an on-going quest for both simplifications and deeper understanding."
Bourjaily is a theoretical physicist whose research revolves around quantum field theory - the basic theoretical and mathematical framework that combines quantum mechanics with relativity. He works to revolutionize how quantum field theory is used to make predictions for experiments. Among the most important of these predictions are scattering amplitudes, which encode the predicted relative likelihoods of all possible outcomes of any experiment. Bourjaily's research has led to advances in the ability to make such predictions and in understanding the mathematical form that these predictions take.
"We are thrilled for Jacob to receive this honor, especially this year, which has been designated by UNESCO as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology to celebrate 100 years of quantum mechanics," said Mauricio Terrones, George A. and Margaret M. Downsbrough Head of the Department of Physics, Evan Pugh University Professor, professor of chemistry and of materials science and engineering. "Jacob's work in quantum field theory pushes traditional field boundaries and is changing our understanding of scattering amplitudes. Congratulations, Jacob, on this well-deserved honor."
Bourjaily has been honored with many awards and major grants, including a Young Investigator Award from the Danish Villum Foundation in 2017 and a Starting Grant from the European Research Council in 2018, used to bring together one of the world's largest groups studying scattering amplitudes. He was elected a junior gellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows in 2011. Bourjaily has published many articles in leading scientific journals and co-authored the book "Grassmannian Geometry of Scattering Amplitudes," published by Cambridge University Press in 2016. His work has been featured in popular scientific news outlets including Nature, Quanta Magazine and New Scientist, and his work even made an appearance on the television show "The Big Bang Theory."
Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State, Bourjaily was a visiting professor at Harvard University and assistant then associate professor at the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. He earned bachelor's degrees in physics and mathematics at the University of Michigan in 2005. He was awarded a Marshall Scholarship to pursue a master's degree in mathematics at Cambridge University, which he earned in 2006, and completed a doctoral degree in theoretical physics at Princeton University in 2011.
