Jesus Perez Rios, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Stony Brook University, has received a U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award. The five-year grant, totaling $667,308, will support his project focused on developing a theoretical framework for three-body recombination processes and third-order chemical reactions. These processes are relevant to areas including cold chemistry and plasma physics across a wide temperature range.
“Our findings and models will have an impact in a multitude of fields in physics and chemistry, including chemical physics, atmospheric physics, spectroscopy, and plasma physics, to name a few,” said Rios.
The educational component of the proposal includes the introduction of a new course that highlights various career paths in physics. This aims to underscore the importance of STEM education and the role of physics in societal welfare.
“At this time of uncertainties and cuts in federal funding, it is exceptionally heartwarming to hear Jesus receiving an NSF Early CAREER award, a defining moment of any junior faculty’s career as it represents highly selective recognition of not only the recipient’s accomplishments but also future potential,” said Chang Kee Jung, distinguished professor and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. “Jesus’s research is interdisciplinary by nature and its vision has a broader horizon than usual. Jesus is dedicated to undergraduate education and early research involvements, and the Department of Physics and Astronomy is blessed to have Jesus as well as other fantastic junior faculty members.”
Few-body physics examines how systems with limited degrees of freedom interact at various energy scales. Three-body recombination—where three particles collide resulting in two forming a bound state while the third carries away excess energy—is important for phenomena such as ozone formation or ion stability at ultracold temperatures.
Rios joined Stony Brook University in 2022. He authored “An Introduction to Cold and Ultracold Chemistry: Atoms, Molecules, Ions and Rydbergs” published by Springer in 2020. He serves on editorial boards for journals related to few-body systems and atomic/molecular studies beyond the Standard Model.
His research group investigates atomic- and molecular-level processes with applications across multiple subfields using analytical methods, computational tools, and data science techniques.
The NSF CAREER Award recognizes early-career faculty who show promise as academic leaders integrating research with education.
