The IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society Particle Accelerator Science and Technology (PAST) Technical Committee grants the PAST Award to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the development of particle accelerator science and technology.

Two awards are granted at each of the Particle Accelerator Conferences held in North America (PAC or IPAC). The 2025 PAST Award and the PAST Doctoral Student Award were both presented at the 2025 North American Particle Accelerator Conference (NAPAC’25), held in Sacramento, California, from August 10 to 15, 2025.

Congratulations to our 2025 Award winners for PAST!

Dr. Jean-Luc Vay of LBNL is one of the winners of the IEEE NPSS Particle Accelerator Science and Technology Award 2025.

“For seminal contributions and leadership in computational beam and accelerator physics.”

Jean-Luc Vay is a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), where he leads the Accelerator Modeling Program. With a Ph.D. in Physics from Université Paris-7, his career spans pioneering contributions in high-performance computing and simulation of charged particle beams, plasmas, and advanced accelerators. Vay is recognized for developing innovative computational techniques, such as Lorentz-boosted frame simulations, and has been instrumental in architecting tools for next-generation accelerator modeling on exascale platforms.

He has held leadership roles in numerous U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) projects, including principal investigator positions for SciDAC and Exascale Computing Projects. Vay has authored over 200 publications and earned multiple prestigious awards, such as the ACM Gordon Bell Prize (2022) and a Fellowship in the American Physical Society (2018).

A thought leader in his field, he actively contributes to strategic research planning through workshops, committees, and academic instruction, including lecturing at CERN and U.S. Particle Accelerator Schools. His work continues to shape the future of accelerator science and high-performance simulations globally.

Dr. Yoshinori Enomoto of KEK is a winner of the IEEE NPSS Particle Accelerator Science and Technology Award for 2025.

“For his critical contributions to injector linac technology, particularly the development of pulsed magnet systems and positron production.”

Dr. Yoshinori Enomoto is an accelerator physicist specializing in high-intensity positron sources for cutting-edge particle accelerators. He joined the KEK injector linac group in 2015, where he has played a leading role in the design and development of positron sources for major collider projects, including SuperKEKB and the proposed International Linear Collider (ILC). His expertise was pivotal in stabilizing the world’s most intense operational positron source at SuperKEKB, where be pioneered the use of a novel copper alloy to improve the flux concentrator performance.

Enomoto’s research spans the full lifecycle of accelerator components, from design and prototyping to simulation and testing. He has also contributed significantly to global collaborations focused on future Higgs factories such as the ILC, FCC-ee, and CEPC.

Before joining KEK, Enomoto worked at RIKEN, where he developed the RIKEN Cryogenic Electrostatic Ion Storage Ring (RICE), achieving stable storage of heavy ions at cryogenic temperatures. He began his research career developing charged particle traps for antihydrogen synthesis at the University of Tokyo, where he earned his Ph.D. in 2011. Enomoto is an active member of several scientific societies and teaches high-energy accelerator science at Chuo University.

PAST Doctoral Student Award

Dr. Andrew Fischer of Zap Energy (Ph.D from UCLA) is the recipient of the 2025 IEEE Particle Accelerator Science and Technology Doctoral Student Award.

“For outstanding work in the development of tunable free-electron laser technology with high record-breaking efficiency in the THz frequency range.”

Dr. Andrew Fischer recently completed a Ph.D. in Physics at UCLA, where he conducted research on high-efficiency Free Electron Laser (FEL) interactions in the terahertz regime under the guidance of Prof. Pietro Musumeci. His experiments demonstrated up to 10% single-pass efficiency in a one-meter undulator by leveraging “zero-slippage” waveguide resonance combined with strong undulator tapering. As part of this work, he helped develop a frequency-domain model of field generation, implemented as a custom element in the General Particle Tracer (GPT) code.

Beyond his research, Andrew led upgrades to the software controls and data acquisition routines for the Pegasus Beamline at UCLA, improving experimental workflows. Following graduation, he joined RadiaBeam Technologies in Los Angeles, where he contributed to the commissioning of a 100 MeV electron beamline. He recently transitioned to Zap Energy in Washington state, where he works on the controls team supporting fusion energy development.

Paolo Craievich can be reached by E-mail at [email protected]