For extraordinary public outreach on particle physics and cosmology, as an educator, author, public lecturer, and consultant for TV and radio programs, and for his pioneering work communicating with a variety of international audiences using social networking.
The annual award consists of $5,000 cash to the winner and a grant of $3,000 to further the public communication of physics at an academic institution the winner chooses. Carroll has named as recipient of the grant The Story Collider, a nonprofit based in New York City, which is devoted to publicizing stories about science.
Sean Carroll is a physicist at the California Institute of Technology. Raised in Yardley, Pennsylvania, he received his Ph.D. in 1993 from Harvard University, and has worked at MIT, the Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara, and the University of Chicago. His research focuses on theoretical physics and cosmology, especially the origin and constituents of the universe. He has contributed to models of interactions between dark matter, dark energy, and ordinary matter; alternative theories of gravity; violations of fundamental symmetries; and the arrow of time. Carroll is the author of "The Particle at the End of the Universe," "From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time," and the textbook "Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity." He has been awarded fellowships by the Sloan Foundation, the Packard Foundation, and the American Physical Society. He frequently consults for film and television, and has been featured on television shows such as “The Colbert Report”, PBS's “Nova” and “Through the Wormhole” with Morgan Freeman.