2010 Beller Lectureship Award from the American Physical Society for Dr. Nathalie Picqué

This distinction is awarded by the American Physical Society (APS) to non-US exceptional scientists.

A permanent senior research scientist with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France), Dr. Picqué is currently on long-term leave at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (Garching, near Munich) and the Ludwig Maximilians Universität München, where she works in the Laser Spectroscopy Division of Professor Theodor W. Hänsch.

Dr. Nathalie Picqué was born on December 2, 1973 in France. She obtained her doctoral degree in Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics in 1998 from the Université de Paris-Sud (Orsay, France). She was appointed as a permanent research scientist with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in 2000. Starting in 2005, she became a scientific director at the Laboratoire de Photophysique Moléculaire (Orsay, France).

Dr. Picqué's research focus lies in molecular and laser physics, including in particular Fourier transform spectroscopy, laser frequency combs and precision measurements in molecular spectroscopy. She has done much work developing ways to use laser frequency combs in Fourier transform spectroscopy. One of the projects carried out at the MPQ is the combination of cavity enhancement and frequency comb spectroscopy for molecular trace gas analysis.

Dr. Picqué has already received the 2007 Bronze Medal of the CNRS (best young scientist of the year in the field “Optics and Lasers, Atomic and Molecular Physics, Hot Plasmas” in France), and the 2008 Jean Jerphagnon Prize.

The Beller Lectureship Award was endowed by Esther Hoffman Beller for the purpose of bringing distinguished physicists from abroad as invited speakers at APS meetings. The award has been presented to Dr. Nathalie Picqué at the APS March Meeting (Portland, USA). Dr. Picqué is the fourth French recipient of this distinction, after Prof. Serge Haroche in 1996, Prof. Pierre Gilles de Gennes in 2006 and Prof. Michel Dyakonov in 2009. Olivia Meyer-Streng

For further information please contact:
Dr. Nathalie Picqué
Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics
Hans-Kopfermann-Str. 1
D-5748 Garching
Phone: +49(0) 89 32905-290
e-mail: nathalie.picque@mpq.mpg.de
Dr. Olivia Meyer-Streng
Press & Public Relations Office
Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics
Hans-Kopfermann-Str. 1
D-5748 Garching
Phone: +49(0) 89 32905-213
e-mail: olivia.meyer-streng@mpq.mpg.de