ITHACA, N.Y. -- Neil Ashcroft, professor of physics at Cornell University, has been named winner of the 2003 Bridgman Award in high pressure physics, awarded by the International Association for the Advancement of High Pressure Science and Technology. The award is named for Percy Bridgman, winner of the 1946 Nobel Prize in physics.

Ashcroft's expertise is in theoretical condensed-matter physics, speciÞcally in interacting many-particle systems as they occur in condensed matter. Among his research interests is metallic hydrogen and matter under extreme conditions, as might be found in the interiors of the giant planets.

The award announcement cited Ashcroft's contributions "to the development of the density functional theory of liquid and solid phases." The development of the theory of metals, the announcement said, is the area where he has "exerted both profound and wide inßuence."

Ashcroft, who joined the Cornell faculty in 1965 after earning his doctorate from the University of Cambridge in 1964, was named the Horace White Professor in Physics in 1990. He was director of the Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics from 1979 to 1984 and of the Cornell Center for Materials Research from 1997 to 2000. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1997.