Nobel Winner Credits Watchung Hills For Developing His Interests

Astrophysicist Adam Riess, who grew up in Warren and was the salutatorian for his 1988 class at Watchung Hills Regional High School, and two colleagues were awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for a 1998 discovery about the expansion of the universe.

Riess, a professor in physics and astronomy, was recognized "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae," according to a press release from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

“Adam was one of the five brightest students I have ever taught," Jeff Charney, the former head of the high school's science department and one of Reiss' teachers at the school, said Tuesday. "He was more than an exceptional student. He was a thinker and a questioner. His ability to assimilate knowledge and apply it to novel situations was
extremely impressive.”

During his press conference this morning following the announcement, Reiss called Charney a "great science teacher," and said his interest in science developed at the school.

Dr. Riess, who is now Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the Space Telescope Science Institute and
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, will share in the prize of $10 million Swedish kroner (about $1.4
million dollars)when the team is honored in Stockholm on December 10th, 2011.

Said Dr. Riess in an e-mail received in 2008 in his response to being inducted into the Hall of Fame: “I
thank Watchung Hills Regional High School for setting me on the path to those answers and seeking
others about the mysteries of our Universe.”

Riess, 41, shares the award with colleagues Brian P. Schmidt of the Australian National University and Saul Perlmutter of the University of California, Berkeley. Riess and Schmidt will split half of the $1.4 million prize. Perlmutter will receive the other half. In December, Riess will travel to Sweden to recieve a medal, diploma and a cash prize worth about $360,800.

Perlmuttler heads the Supernova Cosmology Project at Berkeley, launched in 1998. Reiss and Schmidt worked on a competing project, the High-z Supernova Search Team. The scientists expected to find evidence that the universe was expanding at a slower rate, but found the opposite, that dark energy has been causing the universe to expand at a faster rate.

The scientists measured signs of supernovae in numerous galaxies. Read up on the science behind the discovery.

Riess told the Baltimore Sun his "jaw dropped" when he got a phone call at 5:30 a.m. with the news.

"My involvement in the discovery of the accelerating universe and its implications for the presence of dark energy has been an incredibly exciting adventure," he said in a Hopkins press release. "I have also been fortunate to work with tremendous colleagues and powerful facilities. I am deeply honored that this work has been recognized."

Riess graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992 and earned his doctorate from Harvard University in 1996, just two years before the winning discovery was made while he was a fellow at Berkeley.

Riess's other awards include a 2008 fellowship from the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation ("the genius grant"), the 2007 Cosmology Prize from the Peter Gruber Foundation, and the $1 million Shaw Prize in 2006. Riess was elected to join the National Academy of Sciences in 2009.

Riess is the 35th Nobel laureate to be associated with Johns Hopkins, including three who still work there today.

"This is an amazing day for all of us at Johns Hopkins, and we are immensely proud," Hopkins President Ronald J. Daniels said in a press release. "Dr. Riess's passion to know more, and the energy with which he pursues that passion, exemplify the commitment made by all of us across Johns Hopkins to deploy knowledge to create a better and more humane world. That hunger to always know more is what makes the Johns Hopkins faculty so extraordinary."

Dr. Frances Stromsland, Watchung Hills superintendent said she was "very proud and pleased for him and this recognition of the extraordinary work he has accomplished.”