Contact: Sasha Steinberg

STARKVILLE, Miss.-- A Mississippi State graduate from Nepal recently received major recognition from the managing and operating contractor of a world-leading physics research facility funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Adesh Subedi, a 2014 Bagley College of Engineering doctoral graduate and 2011 physics master's graduate, is a 2015 co-recipient of the Thesis Prize awarded by Washington, D.C.-based Jefferson Science Associates, LLC.

Established in 1999 by the Southeastern Universities Research Association, the JSA Thesis Prize annually is awarded to the best Jefferson Lab-related thesis in a given calendar year. Quality of the written thesis, as well as the student's contribution to the work and Jefferson Lab physics/community, are among criteria for evaluation. For more, see https://wiki.jlab.org/cugwiki/index.php/Ph.D._Thesis_Prize.

According to JSA officials, the quality of theses received this year again left the review panel with the difficult task of selecting a single winner. Ultimately, the panel decided to designate two co-recipients who would split the $2,500 top prize. Each also received a commemorative plaque.

Joining fellow co-recipient Cristiano Fanelli from Italy's Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare/Sanità, Subedi was formally recognized earlier this month during the JLab User Annual Group Meeting in Newport News, Virginia.

Additionally, both winners presented their respective research to scientists from across the country and around the world.

Subedi donated his $1,250 award to relief efforts assisting those affected by April's devastating earthquake in Nepal.

In completing his doctoral thesis experiment, "Determination of the weak charge of the proton through parity violating asymmetry measurements in the elastic e+p scattering," Subedi interacted with nearly 100 national and international collaborators. Six of the collaborators were from MSU, and in addition to Subedi, included physics and astronomy professor Jim Dunne, associate professor Dipangkar Dutta, fellow graduates Amrendra Narayan and Luwani Ndukum, and former postdoctoral associate Mitra Shabestari.

"Adesh started his graduate program here at MSU in 2009, and shortly after that joined our Medium Energy Nuclear Physics group," said Dunne, who at the time, was tasked with supporting the effort to design and build what was referred to as the Qweak cryogenic hydrogen target.

"The target is a critical piece of any nuclear physics experiment and almost always is a critical path item. It was no different for Qweak," Dunne explained. "We were pushing the envelope on this target in terms of heat load, more than doubling any existing target. On top of that, the boiling noise limits were very low, making this an extremely challenging endeavor."

After completing his coursework at MSU and passing his Ph.D. qualifying exams, Subedi relocated to JLab and became part of the second wave of graduate students to take on Qweak as their thesis project.

"Adesh initially dedicated all of his time toward the target project. Once the experiment began to take data, he was extremely focused on the run and was one of the top shift takers for the collaboration," Dunne said of Subedi, whose efforts ultimately "promoted him beyond just a target expert and made him an integral part of the complete analysis."

Dunne further praised Subedi for the "scope of work he put into the thesis" and the "substantial impact his work has made on the Qweak ongoing effort."

"Adesh did an outstanding job on his dissertation, and I gave him my strongest recommendation for this award," he added.

Jefferson Science Associates, LLC, oversees the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, which is one of 17 national laboratories funded by the DOE. Available online at www.jlab.org, the Jefferson Lab also receives support from the Commonwealth of Virginia and the City of Newport News.

Visit bagley.msstate.edu to learn more about MSU's Bagley College of Engineering; physics and astronomy department at physics.msstate.edu.

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