Assistant Professor Alexander Watson wins 2023 Journal of Mathematical Physics Young Researcher Award
Alexander Watson headshot

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (1/27/2025) – School of Mathematics Assistant Professor Alexander Watson was recently named the winner of the 2023 Journal of Mathematical Physics (JMP) Young Researcher Award. The JMP Young Researcher Award aims to recognize outstanding research in mathematical physics by a JMP author or coauthors.

The award specifically recognizes Watson’s paper “Bistritzer-MacDonald dynamics in twisted bilayer graphene,” which he co-authored with Tianyu Kong, Allan H. MacDonald, and Mitchell Luskin. The paper appeared in JMP in March 2023.

Watson’s research lies at the interface of mathematics and physics, and seeks to understand how fundamental theoretical models can be used in conjunction with mathematical theory to predict properties of a variety of materials. Their work also aims to simplify those models while still capturing all of the important properties of the material’s properties. One of Watson’s materials of interest is graphene, an exceptionally strong two-dimensional material composed of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice. The award-winning “Bistritzer-MacDonald dynamics in twisted bilayer graphene” opens up many avenues for further discovery in this area, including the authors’ current work to understand corrections to the Bistritzer-MacDonald model and how those corrections might break symmetries of the original model.

“I am very proud of the award and grateful to my coauthors whose contributions improved the paper considerably. I will take the award as encouragement to keep working hard applying modern mathematical ideas to important models in physics.” – Assistant Professor Alexander Watson

Watson joined the University of Minnesota faculty in 2023 after completing postdoctoral roles at UMN – with co-author Mitchell Luskin – and Duke University. He earned his PhD in Applied Mathematics at Columbia University under the advisement of Michael Weinstein. You can learn more about Watson and his research here.

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