Applications are open for a Simons-FAPESP research professor position in any area related to theoretical physics. Depending on the qualifications of the candidate, the position will be either a permanent professorship or a 5-year professorship with the possibility of tenure after 3 years. Although applications will be accepted until the position is filled, candidates are strongly encouraged to apply before December 1, 2019.

Pedro Vieira, joint faculty member of ICTP-SAIFR and Perimeter Institute, was announced in September as co-winner of the 2020 New Horizons in Physics Prize “for profound contributions to the understanding of quantum field theory”. The prize comes with an award of 100,000 US dollars and will be shared with Simon Caron-Huot from McGill University.

ICTP-SAIFR recently created a website for receiving donations from both private individuals and companies. These donations allow us to attract the top researchers and graduate students to our center, to expand our schools and workshops that train the next generation of physicists, and to engage the general public and high-school students and teachers through our diverse outreach activities.

Ricardo Martinez-García, former postdoc at Princeton University, arrived at ICTP-SAIFR in September as a tenure-track fellow supported by a joint grant from the Simons Foundation (New York) and a Young Investigator fellowship of FAPESP. Ricardo is a Spanish biophysicist whose current research is on the physics of complex systems applied to ecological biodiversity.

The School on Interaction of Light with Cold Atoms was held at ICTP-SAIFR from Sept. 16-27 and covered topics included light scattering, cold and ultracold matter, quantum information and quantum optics. Lecturers included E. Akkerman (Technion, Israel), M. Baranov (IQOQI, Austria), M. Brune (ENS, France), P. Corteille (IFSC-USP), R. Serra (UFABC), G. Shlyapnikov (CEA-CRNS, France), J. Simonet (U. Hamburg) and J. Walraven (U. Amsterdam).