The 2020 ATLAS Outstanding Achievement Awards ceremony was held online on 11 February 2021. Established in 2014, the awards recognise outstanding contributions in support of the ATLAS experiment, covering all areas except physics analysis.

The Collaboration Board Chair Advisory Group, which selected the winners, received a total of 61 nominations – for individuals or teams – to 32 ATLAS projects. “It was difficult to select between so many excellent nominations,” says Al Goshaw from Duke University (USA) and the Awards Committee Chair. “In the end, our selection relied upon the collective recommendations from expert reviews and Collaboration Board Chair Advisory Group members.”

“The ATLAS Outstanding Achievement Awards provide a way of acknowledging the diverse efforts that keep the experiment producing high-quality data,” continues Goshaw. This year’s awards highlighted eight activities involving a total of 21 people, recognising technical work on the detector operation, upgrade, software, computing and combined performance.

In a time where the winners are not able to walk up onto the stage – with applause – to receive a plaque and diploma, ATLAS had to celebrate them in a new way. The Committee called on the winners to turn on their cameras as each award was announced, thanking them personally for their work. Meet the winners below!

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For outstanding contributions and dedication to the safety of ATLAS, especially in 2020: Laetitia Bardo (CERN), Marie-Solene Teurnier (CERN) and Laure Tranchand (CERN).

For outstanding contributions to ATLAS software, notably the multithreaded migration of Athena: Susumu Oda (Kyushu University).

For outstanding contributions to the development of Monte Carlo generator software in the Athena framework: Ewelina Maria Lobodinska (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY).

For outstanding contributions to the operation and performance of the Liquid Argon Calorimeter: Clément Camincher (CERN), Adriana Milic (University of Toronto) and Nikiforos Nikiforou (University of Texas at Austin).

For outstanding contributions to the DAQ upgrades and commissioning directed to the TRT operation at high occupancy and trigger rates: Elodie Deborah Resseguie (University of Pennsylvania and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Shion Chen (University of Pennsylvania), George Ian Dyckes (University of Pennsylvania), Khilesh Pradip Mistry (University of Pennsylvania), Daniil Ponomarenko (National Research Nuclear University/MEPhI), Vincent Wong (University of British Columbia) and Keisuke Yoshihara (University of Pennsylvania).

For outstanding contributions to the reduction of the Level-1 muon endcap trigger rates: Toshi Sumida (Kyoto University), Tomomi Kawaguchi (Nagoya University), Junpei Maeda (Kobe University), Júlio Vieira de Souza (Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora).

For outstanding contributions to the Tile Calorimeter maintenance and commissioning activities in LS2: Danijela Bogavac (IFAE).

For outstanding contributions to the development of front-end electronics and readout for the New Small Wheel detector: George Iakovidis (Brookhaven National Laboratory).