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2024 Ernest Rutherford Medal and Prize

Professor Alison Bruce for seminal contributions to the understanding of shapes and dynamical symmetries in atomic nuclei and inspirational leadership in international nuclear structure physics research. 


Professor Alison Bruce is a world-leading researcher who has made outstanding contributions to understanding of shapes and dynamical symmetries in atomic nuclei. Her early-career breakthroughs included the determination of deformed nuclear shapes through measurements of collective electric dipole strength functions. Bruce’s novel application of interacting boson model symmetries allowed consistent predictions of spectroscopic observables in deformed odd-mass nuclei that enabled a step-change in the understanding of nuclear collective, deformed excitation modes. 

Bruce established the nuclear physics group at the University of Brighton, where in 2005, she was appointed as the UK’s first female full Professor of Experimental Nuclear Physics. At Brighton, she has led a research programme of high-impact measurements, including transition rates in rare-earth nuclei to establish the robustness of the K quantum number and the associated electromagnetic decay hindrances as a proxy signature for axial symmetry in rare-earth nuclei. Her pioneering development of arrays of scintillation gamma-ray detectors with sub-nanosecond timing capabilities has enabled precision electromagnetic transition rate determinations, which inform nuclear structural evolution in some of the most exotic radionuclides. 

She has led UK efforts in the application of such fast-timing arrays in laboratories worldwide, including the UK’s contributions to the new Radioactive Beam Facility, Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR, Germany) as spokesperson for the Decay SPECtroscopy (DESPEC) collaboration and at the Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory (RIKEN-RIBF, Japan). 

Her seminal 2015 RIKEN-RIBF-based paper established excited-state nuclear electromagnetic decay rates in the most neutron-rich zirconium isotopes, providing unambiguous evidence for highly deformed quadrupole shapes in these nuclei; a textbook example of shape evolution at the largest neutron excess. 

Her inclusive ethos is exemplified by her leadership of programmes for Global Research Challenges in nuclear science. Beginning in 2018, she instigated the first international series of Advanced Nuclear Science & Technology Techniques (ANSTT) workshops. Between 2018 and 2023, Bruce arranged five consecutive ANSTT workshops, enabling the widest possible dissemination of technical expertise and capacity building in radiation measurement for environmental and medical applications across developing nations across sub-Saharan Africa. 

Bruce is a scientific pioneer, academic role model and highly respected international ambassador for nuclear science. She has held major committee positions, raising the profile of the UK nuclear physics community internationally, including as vice-chair of the NuSTAR Collaboration Board for FAIR, chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council Nuclear Physics Grants Panel and chair of the European Physical Society Nuclear Physics Division Board. Her leadership and influence have shaped the UK’s role across leading international nuclear physics research programmes.