Pierre Vsevolod Sokolsky is an American physicist, currently a Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Dean Emeritus of the University of Utah College of Science and also a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Biography

Pierre Sokolsky earned a BA degree in 1967 at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

, and a MS and PhD degree in 1969 and 1973 at the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

. Following his degree conferral, he started a

postdoctoral researcher A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to pu ...

position at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. Sokolsky joined the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

physics faculty in 1981 and was promoted to full professor in 1988. He served as the chair of the physics department from August 2003 to July 2007 after which he became dean of the University of Utah College of Science until 2014. In 2004, Sokolsky spearheaded the University’s $17 million

Telescope Array Project The Telescope Array project is an international collaboration involving research and educational institutions in Japan, The United States, Russia, South Korea, and Belgium. The experiment is designed to observe air showers induced by ultra-high- ...

located just west of Delta, Utah, to study

ultra-high-energy cosmic ray In astroparticle physics, an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) is a cosmic ray with an energy greater than 1 EeV (1018 electronvolts, approximately 0.16 joules), far beyond both the rest mass and energies typical of other cosmic ray parti ...

s in a collaboration with scientists from the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...

, the

University of Montana The University of Montana (UM) is a public research university in Missoula, Montana. UM is a flagship institution of the Montana University System and its second largest campus. UM reported 10,962 undergraduate and graduate students in the fa ...

, the University of Tokyo Institute for Cosmic Ray Research and several other Japanese universities. Sokolsky also launched a comprehensive astronomy research program at the University of Utah, including undergraduate and graduate degrees in astronomy. Sokolsky was a

Sloan Fellow The Sloan Fellows program is the world's first mid-career and senior career master's degree in general management and leadership. It was initially supported by a grant from Alfred P. Sloan, the late CEO of General Motors, to his alma mater, MI ...

in 1977 and 2002 he was named a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society. In 2006 Sokolsky was awarded the Utah Governor’s Medal for Science and Technology for his distinguished service to the State of Utah. In 2008, he received the

Panofsky Prize The Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics is an annual prize of the American Physical Society. It is given to recognize and encourage outstanding achievements in experimental particle physics, and is open to scientists of any nation. It w ...

in Experimental Particle Physics for "the pioneering development of the atmospheric fluorescence technique as a method for exploring the highest energy cosmic rays."

References

1946 births Living people University of Utah faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society University of Chicago alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni 21st-century American physicists Experimental physicists Cosmic ray physicists Sloan Research Fellows Winners of the Panofsky Prize {{US-physicist-stub