ICTP Announces 2026 Dirac Medal Recipients | ICTP
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ICTP Announces 2026 Dirac Medal Recipients
Four physicists share award for pioneering contributions to statistical mechanics
Condensed Matter and Statistical Physics
Quantitative Life Sciences
ICTP has awarded its 2026 Dirac Medal to four physicists who have made important contributions to statistical mechanics, a framework used by physicists to describe the collective behaviour of systems with many constituents, and have used it to explore far-ranging concepts in theoretical physics with implications for real-world advancements, from the study of biological systems to that of financial markets and to artificial intelligence.
The Medal citation reads: "For their pioneering contributions to equilibrium statistical mechanics and for extending its concepts and methods into non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, optimization problems, theoretical neuroscience, and, finally, artificial intelligence".
The four winners are:
Bernard Derrida , Honorary Professor, Collège de France, France
Deepak Dhar , INSA Distinguished Professor, International Centre for Theoretical Sciences of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India
Marc Mézard , Professor of Theoretical Physics, Bocconi University, Italy
Haim Sompolinsky , Professor of Neuroscience and of Physics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and Visiting Professor, Harvard University, USA
“The work of the 2026 Dirac Medallists has contributed to establishing theoretical physics, and particularly statistical mechanics, as a powerful framework to tackle a very broad range of questions that go far beyond its traditional domain of interest to encompass biology, computer science and artificial intelligence,” commented ICTP Director Atish Dabholkar who chairs the prize committee. “I am particularly happy that this year’s Medal recognises a research field that has had a long tradition...