Chris Quigg

Chris Quigg is Distinguished Scientist Emeritus at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. His research spans many topics in particle physics, from heavy quarks through cosmic neutrinos. His work on electroweak symmetry breaking and supercollider physics, which was recognized by the 2011 J. J. Sakurai Prize of the American Physical Society for outstanding achievement in particle theory, charted the course for exploration at Fermilab’s Tevatron and CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. His current research centers on experiments at the LHC. The second edition of his classic textbook on gauge theories was published by Princeton University Press in 2013.

Quigg graduated in physics from Yale in 1966 and received his Ph.D. at Berkeley in 1970 under John David Jackson. After four years in the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook, he moved to Fermilab, which has been his scientific home ever since. He led the Theoretical Physics Department for a decade during its formative years. In 1987 he returned to Berkeley to serve for two years as Deputy Director of the Superconducting Super Collider Central Design Group. He has held visiting appointments at CERN, École Normale Supérieure in Paris, Cornell University, and Princeton University, and was Erwin Schrödinger Professor at the University of Vienna. He has lectured at summer schools and conferences in more than three dozen countries on six continents.

Chris Quigg is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Physical Society. He was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, an Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency. As Chair of the APS Division of Particles and Fields, he led the 2001 Snowmass Study on the Future of Particle Physics. Quigg has served as Divisional Associate Editor of Physical Review Letters (1980-1983), Associate Editor of Reviews of Modern Physics (1981-1993), and Editor of the Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science (1994-2004). He has been an advisor to the Future Circular Colliders initiative at CERN.

Quigg is committed to bringing the world to science and science to the world. He was a founding lecturer in Fermilab’s Saturday Morning Physics program and has helped create symposia on the nature of science for high school students and teachers. He served as a Trustee of the Illinois Mathematics & Science Academy. He writes and lectures regularly for the general public.

When not contemplating Nature’s secrets, Chris Quigg can be found hiking Europe’s long-distance trails. After being grounded during the time of COVID-19, he cooks even more fervently than before.

Grace in All Simplicity