The Dirac Medal for the Advancement of Physics is awarded by the University of New South Wales jointly with the Australian Institute of Physics on the occasion of the Dirac public lecture, held at UNSW and sponsored by Diraq.

The Lecture and Medal commemorate a visit to UNSW in 1975 by Prof. Paul Dirac, who gave a series of five lectures. The lectures were subsequently published as a book Directions of Physics (Wiley, 1978 – H. Hora and J. Shepanski, eds.), the royalties from which were used to establish the Medal, which was first awarded in 1979. Past winners include Brian Schmidt and Lene Hau (full list here).

In 2018 some changes were made to the Dirac medal and lecture following a review by UNSW’s Faculty of Science and School of Physics to improve the selection process and to maintain its relevance and the quality of the awardees and the public lecture that they provide.

The medal will now be open to external nominations with selection criteria being:

a) distinguished contributions to the physics, and

b) demonstrated capability to present a compelling public lecture on the physics surrounding their area of research.

To broaden the scope, nominations are open for distinguished ongoing contributions to all branches of physics including, but not limited to, theoretical physics.

UNSW’s School of Physics has established a selection committee to judge the prize, drawing on expertise across broad areas of physics.

Nominations are now open and will close at 11:59 pm AEST on Monday, 6 July, with the view to selecting a winner and having them present later this year. The nomination form is available on the school website.