The Official Web Page of
Union for Compact Accelerator-driven Neutron Sources
(UCANS)

John M. Carpenter Prize

John M. Carpenter, the advocate of this UCANS conference, sadly passed away in 2020. In his honour, the UCANS Board Members have decided to award the John M. Carpenter prize to a researcher who has made a significant contribution to the work of the Compact Accelerator-driven Neutron Source. The award will be presented in conjunction with the UCANS Conference.

First John M. Carpenter Prize(2023) is awarded to
Yoshiaki Kiyanagi
Emritus Professor of Hokkaido University, Japan.



John M. Carpenter, history and achievement

Jack took his bachelor's degree in Nuclear Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in 1957, and his Masters and PhD from the University of Michigan in 1964. He stayed on at Michigan as a Post Doc and then as a professor, supervising many graduate students, starting with David Mildner, also known well to many here. While at Michigan he built a chopper spectrometer there at the Ford Nuclear Reactor, and the desire to get better measurements, from a better source, started him down the road that lead to the first spallation neutron source constructed for condensed matter research, the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source (IPNS) at Argonne National Laboratory. IPNS as built was only intended as a prototype - a proof of concept that would lead to funding for the “full version”, yet IPNS ran for 27 years supporting thousands of visiting users and the publication of thousands of scientific articles. While serving as Project Director during IPNS construction, and Technical Director during operation, Jack also mentored students, handed out good ideas for other to run with, and served in advisory roles for every major spallation neutron source facility built, including the Lujan Center at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the KEK in Japan, ISIS in the UK, SNS at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, JPARC in Japan, ESS in Sweden. He used, helped to build, or inspired many of the Compact Accelerator based Neutron Sources we’ve been talking about this week. In his nearly 300 publications he addressed every single aspect of target physics and engineering, moderator physics and operation, and reflector physics; he described clever and efficient design considerations for every type of neutron scattering instrument, as well as the ancillary equipment that goes with them, and he proposed and supported new uses of the existing facilities he had helped to implement. He was awarded the Clifford M. Shull prize in neutron science from the Neutron Scattering Society of America, and the Ilya M Frank award for Neutron Physics from the Frank Laboratory for Neutron Physics. He was raised to fellowship in the American Nuclear Society, the American Physical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Erik Iverson (Excerpt from his memorial speech at the award ceremony)