Seth E. Dorfman was awarded the 2013 Fred L. Scarf Award, given annually to a recent Ph.D. recipient for outstanding dissertation research that contributes directly to solar planetary sciences.
In addition, Dorfman was selected as the inaugural award recipient of the 2013 Basu United States Early Career Award, given annually to an early-career scientist from the United States in recognition of significant work that shows the focus and promise of making outstanding contributions to research in Sun-Earth systems science that further the understanding of both plasma physical processes and their applications for the benefit of society.
Dorfman’s thesis is entitled “Experimental study of 3-D, impulsive reconnection events in a laboratory plasma.” He presented an invited talk and was formally presented with the awards at the 2013 AGU Fall Meeting, held 9–13 December in San Francisco, Calif.
Seth Dorfman received his B.S. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, in 2005. In 2012, he received his Ph.D. in astrophysical sciences under the supervision of Hantao Ji and Masaaki Yamada from Princeton University in New Jersey. Seth is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles, with Troy Carter. He maintains a broad interest in fundamental plasma physics, including the use of laboratory experiments to explore key physical processes in Sun-Earth systems science