ICTP Awards 2026 Dirac Medal to Four Physicists for Statistical Mechanics Work
ICTP Announces 2026 Dirac Medal Recipients (Physics)
The International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) has awarded its 2026 Dirac Medal to Bernard Derrida, Deepak Dhar, Marc Mézard, and Haim Sompolinsky for pioneering contributions to statistical mechanics and its applications to non-equilibrium systems, optimization, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. Their work has influenced fields from biology to finance, with models like the sandpile and Hopfield network.
“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.