1999 Nobel Prize winner elected to National Academy of Sciences

1999 Nobel Prize winner elected to National Academy of SciencesANN ARBOR—Martinus J.G. Veltman, the John D. MacArthur Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Michigan and winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize in physics, is one of 15 foreign associates elected May 2 to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences.

NAS members are elected in recognition of distinguished and continuing achievements in original scientific research. Foreign associates are non-voting members of the Academy with citizenship outside the United States. Those elected
Veltman joined the U-M physics faculty in 1981 after 15 years as a professor of physics at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. From 1981 until his 1997 retirement, Veltman was an active member of the U-M physics department and was particularly involved in teaching and mentoring graduate students.

Veltman shared the 1999 Nobel Prize in physics with Gerardus ‘t Hooft, who is now a professor at the University of Utrecht. They received the prize for work done in the 1960s and 1970s which made it possible for physicists to mathematically predict properties of the sub-atomic particles that make up all matter in the universe and the forces that hold these particles together.

Veltman’s work was vital to the 1995 discovery of the top quark, which was observed for the first time during experiments conducted at the FermiLab particle accelerator near Chicago.

Veltman is a member of the Dutch Academy of Science and is a fellow of the American Physical Society. He has served on policy committees at all of the world’s major high energy physics laboratories. Among his many honors are the U-M Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award, the U-M honorary degree Doctor of Science, the Alexander von Humboldt Award (Germany); Doctor honoris Causa from SUNY-Stonybrook; and the Fifth Physica Lezing (the Netherlands). In 1992 he was knighted into the Dutch order of the Lion in honor of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. He received the 1993 High Energy Physics Prize from the European Physical Society.

Martinus J.G. VeltmanGerardus ‘t HooftFermiLabDutch Academy of Science