February 26, 2025
Clay Córdova, Assistant Professor of Physics, has received the 2025 Frontiers of Science Award (FSA) from the International Congress of Basic Sciences for his work on theoretical particle physics and new symmetries in nature.
The FSA is awarded to a recent paper recognized for a major breakthrough in its field. Córdova shares this award with his collaborator Kantaro Ohmori for their paper titled “Noninvertible Chiral Symmetry and Exponential Hierarchies,” published in Physical Review X in March 2023.
The paper’s main results include the discovery of a new symmetry in massless quantum electrodynamics, which describes a high-energy limit of particle physics and the potential connection of this symmetry to exponential hierarchies in nature.
“Awards like this are exciting because they recognize recent significant developments in science,” said Córdova. “They encourage those on the front lines of discovery to keep advancing.”
The award ceremony will be held in Beijing in July 2025.
About the Frontiers of Science Award
The FSA was inaugurated in 2023 under the auspices of the International Congress of Basic Sciences (ICBS) and sponsored by the City of Beijing and the Yanqi Lake Beijing Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Application (BIMSA). Each year, researchers worldwide are invited to nominate candidates for the award. A panel of renowned experts is asked to review and select a shortlist of award candidates in each research area. A Global Committee is appointed by the ICBS to recommend winners from a pool of shortlisted candidates from different research areas. The total value of an award is $25,000, shared by authors of a winning paper. In 2023 and 2024, respectively, more than 130 awards were presented in three subjects: Mathematics, Physics, and Theoretical Computer and Information Sciences.