Pierre Agostini Prize

Honoring exceptional scholarly and artistic achievement

The Pierre Agostini Prize has been established to memorialize Professor Agostini’s research achievements that led to him winning the Nobel Prize in Physics (2023) and to highlight Ohio State’s commitment to the promotion of innovative and consequential research and creative expression.

The Agostini Prize, awarded to only one faculty member annually, is the university’s most prestigious award for scholarly and artistic achievement. It is given to a faculty member whose research or creative work is recognized by their peers to be so groundbreaking and influential that it deserves to be called “world class” and would typically be recognized through national or international awards. It recognizes ground-breaking work that decisively contributes to the progress of one or more fields or changes that field’s direction. The achievement recognized by the Agostini Prize may be of foundational nature for the field(s) of research from which it emerged or stand out for its exceptional contributions in addressing urgent societal issues. The work may have developed in segments over an extended period, or it may be a singular, revolutionary contribution.

The Agostini Prize includes an award of $50,000, split evenly into a cash award and a research budget. The awardee will also have the opportunity to present a brief overview of their work to Ohio State’s Board of Trustees in the Research, Innovation and Strategic Partnerships Committee.

Nomination and Selection

Colleges, through the dean or representative, shall submit a nomination package through the university’s limited submission portal, which should include a nomination letter from the nominee’s department and college, the nominee’s CV, and two letters of recommendation from scholars external to Ohio State. Each college may nominate up to two faculty members in good standing with the college and university and who has worked at Ohio State for at least four years. Nominations will be reviewed and ranked by a faculty committee, the ERIK executive vice president will make the final decision for the awardee.

agostini receives award from president Carter

Ohio State’s Agostini wins Nobel Prize in Physics

Agostini and colleagues created techniques to capture electrons using pulses of light that last just an attosecond – one quintillionth of a second.

Visit the lab pushing Nobel work to the next level

At its most basic, a chunk of what the Agostini-DiMauro group does is shoot lasers into vacuum tubes to reveal how energy and matter work.

Ohio State celebrates Nobel Laureate Pierre Agostini in Columbus

On a breezy spring day, Pierre Agostini was welcomed back to the Columbus campus with a crowd of more than 200 people.