John Clements Collins (born 1949) is a British-born American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

. He attended the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

where he obtained a B.A. in

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

1971 and a Ph.D. in

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict List of natural phenomena, natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental p ...

in 1975. He worked as a postdoc and assistant professor from 1975 to 1980 at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

. Collins was part of the faculty of the

Illinois Institute of Technology The Illinois Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Illinois Tech and IIT, is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the m ...

from 1980 to 1990. From 1990 to the present, he has been a faculty member in the department of physics at

where he currently holds the position of distinguished professor. He is a Fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

and received the

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

in 1986. In 2009, he was awarded the

Sakurai Prize The J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics, also commonly referred to as just the Sakurai Prize, is a prize awarded by the American Physical Society. It is presented annually at the Society's April meeting and honors "outstanding a ...

along with R. Keith Ellis and Davison E. Soper.

Research

John Collins is known primarily for his foundational contributions to the development of perturbative

quantum chromodynamics In theoretical physics, quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the study of the strong interaction between quarks mediated by gluons. Quarks are fundamental particles that make up composite hadrons such as the proton, neutron and pion. QCD is a type of ...

(QCD), especially the formulation and subsequent development of the QCD factorization theorems. Much of this work was done in collaboration with Davison E. Soper and

George Sterman George Franklin Sterman (born June 2, 1946) is an American theoretical physicist and the Director of the C. N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook University where he holds the rank Distinguished Professor. Background George S ...

. Collins also contributed to the formulation of factorization proofs for exclusive processes and he provided a proof of factorization for hard high-energy diffraction. The ''Collins mechanism'' was proposed to explain the existence of transverse spin dependence in

hadron In particle physics, a hadron is a composite subatomic particle made of two or more quarks held together by the strong nuclear force. Pronounced , the name is derived . They are analogous to molecules, which are held together by the electri ...

collisions. Collins is the author of two books, both published by the

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

: ''Renormalization: An Introduction to Renormalization, the Renormalization Group and the Operator-Product Expansion'' was published in 1986 and ''Foundations of Perturbative QCD'' was published in 2011.

References

External links

John Collins homepage at Penn State University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Collins, John C. 1949 births Living people 21st-century American physicists Alumni of the University of Cambridge American theoretical physicists J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics recipients Fellows of the American Physical Society