The Zener Medal is an award bestowed by the Scientific and Honorary Committees of the International Conference on Internal Friction and Mechanical Spectroscopy (ICIFMS) in recognition of remarkable scientific achievements in the field of anelasticity, mechanical spectroscopy and generally in the study of condensed matter with acoustic methods.
The conference was first held at the Brown University (Providence, USA) in 1956 as International Conferences on Internal Friction and Ultrasonic Attenuation (ICIFUAS) and soon expanded in participation and scope, with the contribution of many of the major scientists in the recently established field of solid state acoustics, as apparent from the list of the recipients of the award. The ICIFUAS prize was first introduced during ICIFUAS-3 (Manchester, UK, 1965).
At ICIFUAS-10, held in Rome in 1993, shortly after Clarence Melvin Zener passed away, the Prize, consisting of a gold medal with the portrait of Zener, was entitled to him. In fact, though Zener is better known for scientific achievements such as the Zener effect at the basis of the solid state diode, he also wrote the book “Elasticity and Anelasticity in Metals” (1948) , the basis of the field to which the conference is devoted. The Zener Gold Medal continues to be awarded after the conference changed the name into ICIFMS with the same numbering (ICIFMS-14, Kyoto 2005).
List of the ICIFUAS/Zener prize laureates
