ICTP's Quevedo Wins Salam Medal

[Infopoint]


Dear colleagues,

TWAS has just announced that they have awarded their prestigious Abdus 
Salam Medal to ICTP Director Fernando Quevedo. The official announcement 
is below and available on ICTP's website. Professor Quevedo will deliver 
his Abdus Salam Medal Lecture tonight at 18:00, and all staff are 
invited to attend. The lecture will take place in the SISSA Building 
auditorium on via Beirut. It will also be livestreamed at 
https://twas.org/meeting/twass-28th-general-meeting



___________________________________________________________________________________

*ICTP's Quevedo Wins Salam Medal*

/ICTP Director Fernando Quevedo has been awarded the Abdus Salam Medal 
at the TWAS 28th General Meeting in Trieste, Italy./


The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) today awarded its prestigious Abdus 
Salam Medal to Fernando Quevedo for his strong leadership of the Abdus 
Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) and his 
efforts to build science in the developing world.

Quevedo, a Guatemalan theoretical physicist and TWAS Fellow, has served 
as ICTP's director since 2009. He has credited Salam with being a role 
model and an inspiration, saying that he sought to emulate Salam's 
balanced commitment to scientific research and to building scientific 
institutions for developing countries.

"Professor Quevedo's leadership has had a profound impact on the field 
of physics in the developing world," said TWAS President Bai Chunli. 
"ICTP is a thriving institution, and in recent years it has helped to 
open important new research centres in developing countries. And he has 
been a very important friend to TWAS. In these ways and others, he 
embodies Abdus Salam's deep commitment to our shared mission."

Said Quevedo: "As I near the end of my term as ICTP director, I am 
pleased to be given such prestigious recognition by TWAS. For the past 
nine years, Abdus Salam's vision for ICTP has guided my efforts in 
building the centre to what it enjoys today: a vastly expanded presence 
throughout the developing world, strongly committed to a mission of 
promoting scientific excellence and opportunities for all. To be 
recognized for these efforts by an award named after ICTP's founder is a 
great honour for me."

Salam led efforts to found ICTP in 1964 and TWAS in 1983, and through 
much of his career he wrote prolifically and travelled the world to 
advocate the idea that science and technology are essential for bringing 
the poorest countries out of poverty. At the same time he continued his 
research, and won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1979.

His vision is credited with helping to inspire an international 
science-for-development movement. In nations such as Brazil, China, 
India and South Africa, investments in research, technology and 
education have helped to drive historic advances in economic development 
and human well-being.

TWAS inaugurated The Abdus Salam Medal in 1995, a year before his death. 
The medal is awarded to highly distinguished scholars who have served 
the cause of science in the developing world.

Among past winners have been entomologist Thomas R. Odhiambo of Kenyan, 
a giant of African science who was a founding Fellow of TWAS; Italian 
physicist Paolo Budinich, who was Salam's partner in founding ICTP and 
TWAS; and former TWAS Presidents José I. Vargas of Brazil, C.N.R. Rao of 
India, and Jacob Palis of Brazil.

*An early inspiration*

Quevedo was born in 1956 in Costa Rica and obtained early education in 
Guatemala. He earned his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 
1986. His early career included research appointments at CERN in 
Switzerland; McGill University in Canada; Institut de Physique in 
Switzerland; and Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States.

In one sense, winning the Abdus Salam Medal brings Quevedo full circle 
to his days as a PhD student in Texas. He was studying there under 
Steven Weinberg, who had shared the Nobel Prize with Salam a few years 
earlier. Salam came to deliver a lecture; that was Quevedo's first 
in-person encounter with him.

"I didn't talk to him when he came, because he was such a big figure and 
I was just a student," Quevedo recalled in an interview. "But I had 
great admiration for him, especially after realising what ICTP was. My 
dream was to do something like that for Central America – but then I 
realised that he had already done something for the whole world, and 
much bigger."

Once his PhD studies were complete, Quevedo's first job offer came in a 
telegramme from Salam – a postdoctoral position at ICTP in Trieste. 
Quevedo also received an offer from CERN in Switzerland, and he decided 
to go there. But, he said, Salam invited him to spend three weeks in 
Trieste before starting his post at CERN.

Quevedo arrived and made an appointment with Salam. "He was very, very 
kind," he said. "We talked for at least an hour, just the two of us. We 
shared ideas and I told him my dreams – I was just a young person, 
talking to a senior person who had accomplished so much and who seemed 
to know everything."

*ICTP's dynamic expansion*

And then Salam did something that made a lasting impression: He had 
other appointments that afternoon, but he invited the young researcher 
to stay, to watch and listen. The other guests presented their ideas; 
Salam asked questions and offered smart, constructive feedback.

"It was very inspiring for me to see him in action," Quevedo remembers.

In the ensuing years, Quevedo built a high-impact career. In 1998, he 
was awarded the ICTP Prize for his important contributions to 
superstring theory. In 2009, he was appointed director of ICTP, 
succeeding Katepalli Sreenivasan. By that time Quevedo was a well-known 
theoretical particle physicist with wide-ranging research interests in 
string theory, phenomenology and cosmology. He has been a professor of 
theoretical physics at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom since 
2002. He was elected a TWAS Fellow in 2010.

Under Quevedo's leadership, ICTP has expanded dynamically, moving beyond 
theoretical science into areas such as energy, climate science and 
high-performance computing. But, he said, there is a consistent focus 
that cuts across all initiatives: advancing science in the developing world.

ICTP has increased the number of diploma, masters and PhD students, and 
has moved to promote the importance of women in physics and other areas 
of science. It has built new partnerships, both with local universities 
and research centres in developing countries.

*Combining tradition and innovation*

A new focus area – Quantitative Life Sciences – has brought in five 
scientists to work at ICTP in an emerging field that incorporates such 
disciplines as physics, biochemistry, statistics and game theory and 
applies them across the biological sciences. That is expected to produce 
new insights in medicine, genetics and environmental science. For ICTP, 
Quevedo says, that's "a major achievement".

ICTP also has started a master's degree programme in medical physics, 
teaming with the University of Trieste, the International Atomic Energy 
Agency and local hospitals. The field has enormous practical 
applications in areas such as medical imaging, microscopy, cancer 
treatment and protection against radiation. It's not a theoretical 
science, Quevedo said, but for many developing countries it’s an area of 
great potential value.

While building programmes in Trieste, ICTP in recent years also has 
worked with partners to open four international research centres in 
developing and emerging countries. All of them are, or soon will be, 
UNESCO Category 2 institutes:

  * The ICTP South American Institute for Fundamental Research in
    Brazil, which opened in 2011;
  * The Mesoamerican Centre for Theoretical Physics in the Mexican state
    of Chiapas, which opened in 2013. (Its designation as a UNESCO
    Category II centre is awaiting final approval);
  * The East African Institute of Fundamental Research, based at the
    University of Rwanda's Kigali
  * ICTP-Asia Pacific, a theoretical physics institute in Beijing, which
    also opened this year.


"Since the time of Abdus Salam,” Quevedo said, "ICTP has been playing 
this key role: showing that scientists from any country in the world 
have the potential to be successful and can contribute to the 
advancement of science....

"We have to respond to the needs of developing countries. So we have to 
be always updated with the latest discoveries and developments."

Edward Lempinen


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