Materials Theory Award

Materials Theory Award Recipients

• Lu Sham, University of California, San Diego (2019)
  “for pioneering contributions to the quantum theory of molecules and solids, especially the Kohn–Sham formulation of density functional theory"
  
  Lu Sham, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of California, San Diego, is a condensed matter theorist, working on many electron and phonon properties and quantum optical processes in semiconductor nanostructures and ferromagnets. An early practitioner of first-principle computations of lattice vibration spectra and the density functional theory, his recent interest is motivated by quantum information and spintronics. He enjoys collaboration with experimentalists. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and Academia Sinica, ROC, and a fellow of APS, Optical Society of America, and AAAS. He served as a chair of the Semiconductor Commission of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and a member of the Council and of the Executive Board of the American Physical Society and of the Executive Committee of its Division of Condensed Matter Physics. He was born in Hong Kong and is a graduate of Puiching Middle School, Imperial College, London, and Cambridge.
  
  
• Giulia Galli, The University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory (2018)
  “for the development of advanced first-principles simulation methods and their application to the understanding, prediction and design of complex nanostructured materials"
  
  Giulia Galli is the Liew Family Professor of Electronic Structure and Simulations in the Institute for Molecular Engineering and professor of chemistry at The University of Chicago. She also holds a senior scientist position at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). Prior to joining The University of Chicago and ANL, Galli was professor of chemistry and physics at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) and the Head of the Quantum Simulations Group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. She holds a BS degree in physics from the Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia and a PhD degree in physics from the International School of Advanced Studies (SISSA). She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the recipient of an Award of Excellence from the U.S. Department of Energy, the Science and Technology Award from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the 2019 David Adler Lectureship Award from the American Physical Society. Galli is currently the Director of MICCoM (Midwest Integrated Center for Computational Materials: http://miccom-center.org), established by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2015. Her research activity is focused on the development and use of theoretical and computational tools to understand and predict the properties and behavior of materials (solids, liquids and nanostructures) from first principles (https://galligroup.uchicago.edu).
  
  
• Glenn H. Fredrickson, University of California, Santa Barbara (2017)
  “for pioneering the development of field-theoretic computer simulation methods and their application to investigate and design self-assembling polymers and soft materials"
  
  Glenn H. Fredrickson received BS and PhD degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Florida and Stanford University, respectively. He was a member of the technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories from 1984 to 1990, and has been on the faculties of Chemical Engineering and Materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara, since that time. Fredrickson has advised a wide range of companies in the chemicals and materials sector and served as Chief Technology Officer of Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation during the period 2014–2017. He has been honored with major research awards from the American Physical and Chemical Societies and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
  
  
  
  
• Steven G. Louie, University of California, Berkeley (2015)
  "For his seminal contributions to the development of ab initio methods for and the elucidation of many-electron effects in electronic excitations and optical properties of solids and nanostructures."
  
  Steven G. Louie is professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and senior faculty scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He received his B.A. in physics and mathematics in 1972 and Ph.D. in physics in 1976, both from UC Berkeley. After working at IBM Watson Research Center, Bell Laboratories and the University of Pennsylvania, he joined UC Berkeley as an associate professor in 1980 and has been a full professor since 1984.
  
  Louie's research spans a spectrum of topics in theoretical condensed matter and computational materials physics. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and is an academician of the Academia Sinica. He is recipient of the Aneesur Rahman Prize of the American Physical Society (APS), Davisson-Germer Prize of the APS, Foresight Institute Richard P. Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, and Sustained Outstanding Research in Solid State Physics Award of the U.S. Department of Energy. Louie is a Fellow of the APS and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has been a Sloan Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow and Simons Fellow. He has published over 550 scientific papers with an h-index of 112, and has supervised over 90 doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows.
  
  
  
• Gerbrand Ceder, University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (2016)
  “For seminal contributions to the emerging field of computationally guided materials exploiting high-throughput computation and promoting the development of open databases to enable widespread use."
  
  Gerbrand Ceder is the Chancellor’s Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and a faculty scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He received an engineering degree from the University of Leuven, and a PhD degree in Materials Science from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1991. 
  
  His research interests focus on materials design through first-principles computations and experiments. He has developed methods for high-throughput computation, and integrates data mining and statistical learning in materials science. Current interests include materials design in energy storage, and learning how materials nucleate and form. 
  
  Ceder has published over 375 scientific papers, and holds several U.S. patents. He is a Fellow of the Materials Research Society and a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received the TMS Cohen Award, the MRS Gold Medal, the Battery Research Award from The Electrochemical Society, the Career Award from the National Science Foundation, and the Robert Lansing Hardy Award from The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, as well as several teaching awards. Ceder is a co-founder of Computational Modeling Consultants, Pellion Technologies, and The Materials Project.
  
  In this MRS TV interview, Gerbrand Ceder discusses the Materials Theory Award and his work with computationally-guided materials.
  
  
• Long-Qing Chen, The Pennsylvania State University (2014)
  "For his pioneering work in the development of phase-field method and its applications in the computational modeling of mesoscale structures and their dynamics in inhomogeneous materials."
  
  

  Long-Qing Chen is distinguished professor of materials science and engineering, engineering science and mechanics, and mathematics at The Pennsylvania State University (PSU). He received his B.S. in materials science and engineering from Zhejiang University in 1982, M.S. in materials science and engineering from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1985 and Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1990. After a two-year postdoctoral appointment at Rutgers University, he joined the faculty at PSU in 1992. Chen has published over 400 authored or co-authored papers. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, ASM International, and the Materials Research Society. He has received numerous awards and honors including the ONR Young Investigator Award, University Faculty Scholar Medal in Engineering at PSU, Guggenheim Fellowship, ASM Materials Research Silver Medal, and the TMS EMPMD Distinguished Scientist/Engineer Award.

  At the 2014 MRS Fall Meeting, Chen presented "Understanding and Manipulating Mesoscale Ferroic Domain Patterns."

  
  
  
  
• David J. Srolovitz, University of Pennsylvania (2013)
  

  "For decisive and highly influential contributions to the theory and simulation of microstructure, morphological evolution, mechanical behavior, and the structure and dynamics of interfaces." 

  David J. Srolovitz is the Joseph Bordogna Professor of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is also a professor of materials science and engineering and of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics and director of the Penn Institute for Computational Science. His research is on the structure and properties of defects in crystals, microstructure and morphology evolution, and the mechanical behavior of nanoscale materials. He has published more than 400 research papers and has an h-index of 69. He is a fellow of the Materials Research Society, TMS, and ASM International and has given honorary lectures around the world. He has outstanding paper awards from Acta Materialia, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and NASA. He has served as editor-in-chief or on the executive editorial boards of 10 different journals. Born in 1957 in Milwaukee, Srolovitz received his B.S. in physics from Rutgers University (1978) and his M.S.E. (1980) and Ph.D. (1982) degrees in materials science and engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. After postdoctoral work at Exxon Corporate Research (1982), he was a staff member at Los Alamos National Laboratory (theory and materials divisions – 1984), professor at the University of Michigan (materials science and engineering & applied physics -1987), professor at Princeton University (mechanical and aerospace engineering & applied mathematics – 1999), dean of Yeshiva College 2006), and executive director of the Institute of High Performance Computing in Singapore (2009). He has supervised over 45 Ph.D. students and postdoctoral associates. 

  At the 2013 MRS Fall Meeting, Srolovitz presented "Polycrystalline Microstructure At-Scale."

  
  
• John P. Perdew, Tulane University (2012)

  "For his pioneering contributions to the fundamental development and nonempirical approximations in density functional theory."

  John P. Perdew is a professor of physics at Tulane University. His research in the density functional theory of electronic structure has helped to establish this theory as the most widely used method to predict the properties of atoms, molecules and solids from the principles of quantum mechanics. He has published 260 research articles and presented 115 invited talks at conferences. His work has been cited more than 87,000 times. He is an elected fellow of the American Physical Society and an elected member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science and the National Academy of Sciences. The Perdew special issue of theJournal of Chemical Theory and Computation appeared in April 2009.

  Born in 1943 in western Maryland, Perdew received a B.S. in physics and mathematics from Gettysburg College in 1965 and a Ph.D. in physics from Cornell University in 1971. After postdoctoral work at the University of Toronto and Rutgers University, he joined the department of physics at Tulane University in 1977 and was promoted to full professor in 1982. At Tulane, he served two terms as chair of physics and has supervised the research of 15 doctoral students, 12 postdoctoral research associates and two research assistant professors. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation since 1978. 
  
  At the 2012 MRS Fall Meeting, Perdew presented "Climbing the Ladder of Density Functional Approximations."

  
  
  
  
• Alex Zunger, University of Colorado, Boulder (2011)

  "For his development of the inverse band structure approach to materials by design and the foundational developments of methods of first-principles theory of solids, leading to innovative and transformative studies of renewable-energy materials and nanostructures."  

  Alex Zunger received a Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University, Israel, followed by a postdoctoral research position at Northwestern University and the University of California, Berkeley. At the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), he established the Solid State Theory Group, where he has mentored over 70 postdoctoral fellows.

  He has made seminal contributions as a theorist working in the area of condensed matter and materials physics. He made foundational contributions to the development of the pseudopotential total energy approach to predict and explain properties of solids and to the development of exchange-and-correlation functionals for computing electron-electron interactions in density-functional theory. He was a contributor to the fields of semiconductor alloys, complex semiconductors.

  He has authored numerous high-impact articles, leading to an “h-number” of over 90. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society. Other honors include the John Bardeen Award of the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS), the Rahman Award of the APS, the Tomassoni Prize, Physics Medal of the Scola Romana di Physica and the Guttenberg Award of Science.