The IOP-SFP 2024 Holweck Prize awarded to Ludovic Berthier

Ludovic Berthier is Director of Research (DRCE) at CNRS. After a post-doctorate at Oxford University (2001-2004), he joined the CNRS Charles Coulomb laboratory in Montpellier in 2002.

He took a sabbatical at the University of Chicago in 2007, then at Cambridge University for the period 2019-2023. Since autumn 2024, he has been working in the Gulliver laboratory (ESPCI, PSL). He was Junior Research Fellow at Worcester College (Oxford, 2002-2004), and Overseas Fellow at Churchill College (Cambridge, 2019-2023).

Ludovic Berthier is a specialist in statistical mechanics. He is interested in disordered phases of matter, granular matter, active and biological systems, and physical processes far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Ludovic Berthier has introduced major new physical concepts and theoretical methods for complex systems and glassy materials, and was one of the first to explore the notion of effective temperature in non-equilibrium systems.

He participated in the numerical and experimental demonstration of dynamic heterogeneities in glasses, a concept that has revolutionized our understanding of these systems. His research draws heavily on the use of numerical techniques, in particular those he developed, such as the Monte-Carlo swap algorithm.

This method has made it possible, for the first time, to study the physical properties of amorphous solids numerically under conditions comparable to experiments. He was awarded an ERC Starting Grant in 2012 and was one of the investigators of the Simons Foundation project “Cracking the glass problem” (2016-2024). He was awarded the CNRS Bronze Medal in 2007 and the CNRS Silver Medal in 2023, as well as the Michelin Grand Prix from the Académie des Sciences in 2023.

The Holweck Prize

This award was instituted in 1945, jointly by the French and British Physical Societies as a memorial to Fernand Holweck, Director of the Curie Laboratory of the Radium Institute in Paris, who was tortured and killed by the Gestapo during the occupation of France 1940-44. The award is made in alternate years by the Councils of one of the two societies to a physicist selected from a list of nominees submitted by the other. The prize distinguishes exceptional work in any aspect of physics that is ongoing or has been carried out within the 10 years preceding the award. The SFP and the IOP are proud to announce the 2024 award.

List of Holweck laureates