Prizes: Anatole Abragam Prize

Prof. Anatole Abragam made many seminal contributions to both NMR and EPR, was a recipient of the ISMAR Prize, and was also a Fellow of ISMAR. In addition to his superb scientific contributions, Prof. Abragam actively fostered the careers of many younger scientists. With this in mind, ISMAR established the Anatole Abragam Prize for young investigators in magnetic resonance. The Abragam Prize is sponsored by the Bruker Corporation.

Candidates are eligible within seven years of completing their PhD (excluding career delays due to child birth, illness and other special family circumstances). They can be nominated by any regular member of ISMAR. After evaluation by the ISMAR Prize Committee, the winner is selected on the basis of evidence of novel and significant contributions to magnetic resonance. Preference will be given to nominees who have made original and independent contributions to experimental or conceptual aspects of magnetic resonance beyond accomplishments attributable to work performed with their research supervisors. The award aims to recognize and foster outstanding young scientists at a typically important point in their career.

The Anatole Abragam Prize is presented during the opening session of each biennial ISMAR conference.

Anatole Abragam Prize (Current Year)

2025 – Irene Marco-Rius

Dr. Irene Marco-Rius from the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia, Barcelona, is awarded the Anatole Abragam Prize 2025 for her original contributions to hyper-polarized Magnetic Resonance in the field of biomedical imaging and spectroscopy and for pioneering the use of magnetic resonance to study cells grown on chips (“organ-on-a-chip” model), allowing the ex vivo metabolic assessment of disease mechanisms and therapy responses in a highly controlled microenvironment.

Anatole Abragam Prize (Previous Years)

2023 – Ashok Ajoy

Professor Ashok Ajoy from the University of California, Berkeley is awarded the Abragam Prize 2023 for pioneering the development of new magnetic resonance methods based on quantum technologies for nanoscale MRI, quantum sensing and optical hyperpolarization-based NMR, enabled by nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond. His contributions include the invention of a field-cycling scheme for preparing diamond powder with complete 13C polarization at room temperature, and the realization of a portable device for the delivery of hyperpolarized diamond powders on demand. In addition, Ashok has performed dual-mode fluorescence and MRI imaging of diamond nanoparticles, and has shown that it is possible to maintain long-lived 13C transverse magnetization in optically polarized diamond for over 1 minute at room temperature. Apart from the enhancement in sensitivity and resolution of established NMR and MRI methods, his work is driving new application areas for magnetic resonance, such as quantum and nanoscale sensing.

2021 – Tuo Wang

Dr. Tuo Wang of the Department of Chemistry, Louisiana State University, is a co-winner of the 2021 Anatole Abragam Prize. Dr. Wang was awarded the prize for pioneering applications of solid state NMR and dynamic nuclear polarization in studies of the chemical composition, dynamics, and three-dimensional structures of plant cell walls and related biological materials.

2021 – Alexander Forse

Dr. Alexander Forse of the Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, is a co-winner of the 2021 Anatole Abragam Prize. Dr. Forse was awarded the prize for pioneering applications of NMR spectroscopy to the characterization of new materials for electrochemical energy storage and carbon dioxide capture, motivated by the goal of mitigating adverse climate change.

2019 – Michal Leskes

The winner of the 2019 Anatole Abragam Prize is Dr. Michal Leskes from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. She was awarded the prize for her pioneering development of dynamic nuclear polarization with endogenous paramagnetic centers, which is a breakthrough in applications of NMR in Materials Science, particularly for energy storage materials.

2017 – Loren Andreas

The winner of the 2017 Anatole Abragam prize is Dr. Loren Andreas from Max Plank Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany. He was awarded the prize for pioneering contributions to the structure determination of large proteins in the solid state using 1H-detected MAS techniques.

2017 – Björn Burmann

The winner of the 2017 Anatole Abragam prize is Dr. Björn Burmann from Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He was awarded the prize for pioneering contributions to the determination of structure and dynamics of chaperone-client complexes at atomic resolution by solution NMR.

2015 – Dr. Józef Lewandowski

The winner of the 2015 Anatole Abragam prize is Dr. Józef Lewandowski. He was awarded the prize for his outstanding accomplishments to date and his promise in the development of solid-state NMR methodology and its application to the study of biomolecular structure and dynamics.

2013 – Dr. Vikram S. Bajaj

The winner of the 2013 Anatole Abragam prize is Dr. Vikram S. Bajaj. He was awarded the prize for his contributions to the development of novel methodology in magnetic resonance, including remote detection of microfluidic flow, optical detection with atomic magnetometers, MRI of optically encoded templates, studies of NV centers in diamond, and new implementations of the xenon biosensor.