Emory scientists receive Cozzarelli Prize for discovery of new physics in dusty plasma
May 12, 2026
Emory physicists won the Cozzarelli Prize for Mathematical and Physical Sciences from the journal PNAS, for their work using machine learning to discover surprising new twists on the non-reciprocal forces governing a many-body system. The prize is awarded annually to six research teams whose PNAS articles have made outstanding contributions to their field.
The Emory team’s paper, published in 2025, is one of the relatively few instances of using AI not as a data processing or predictive tool, but to discover new physical laws governing the natural world.
The paper’s senior authors are Justin Burton, professor of experimental physics, and Ilya Nemenman, professor of theoretical physics. First author of the PNAS paper is Wentao Yu, who worked on the project as an Emory PhD student and is now a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology. Co-author is Eslam Abdelaleem, who was also part of the project as an Emory graduate student and is now a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Tech.
The researchers made their breakthrough using a neural network model and data from laboratory experiments on dusty plasma — ionized gas containing suspended dust particles.
Learn more about the project in the video produced by PNAS, above, featuring Burton and Nemenman.
