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Faculty Profiles Administrative Personnel Distinguished Visitors Students, Staff & Faculty

	Prior to joining UCSB's faculty in 1991, James Allen had been a member of the technical staff at Bell Labs, took a short leave at the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College, London, and later joined Bellcore as District Research Manager of Solid State Physics Research. Allen has also been an adjunct professor at Northeastern University and at Princeton University. Professional service has included election as Member at Large of the Executive Committee of the Division of Condensed Matter Physics of the A.P.S. where he served on the Strategic Planning Committee and on the Nominating Committee. He has also served on the Editorial Board of Physical Review. In 1995 he won a Humboldt Science Award, is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has co-authored more than 200 publications on transport and terahertz excitations in semiconductor nano-structures, hot-electron dynamics, high temperature superconductivity, magnetism, superionic conductors, metal physics, clathrate inclusion compounds and protein dynamics. He holds three patents.
	Leon Balents is Professor of Physics in the Physics Department and a Permanent Member of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is active in theoretical condensed matter physics, where his research interests include quantum magnetism, strongly correlated electrons, low-dimensional systems, and topological phenomena in solids. He received his Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University in 1994 and has been on the faculty at UCSB since 1999.
	Glenn Fredrickson obtained his Ph.D. at Stanford University in 1984 and subsequently joined AT&T Bell Laboratories, where he was named Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff in 1989. In 1990 he moved to the University of California at Santa Barbara, joining the faculties of the Chemical Engineering and Materials Departments. He served as Chair of Chemical Engineering from 1998-2001 and is currently the Director of the Mitsubishi Chemical Center for Advanced Materials (MC-CAM) and the Director of the Complex Fluids Design Consortium (CFDC). Since 2009, he has also served as Executive Director of The KAITEKI Institute, a strategic unit of Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation. Professor Fredrickson has a long-standing interest in the statistical mechanics of complex fluids, including polymers, colloids, and glasses. His work is primarily theoretical and computational and has been most recently focused on field-based computer simulation strategies for anticipating the bulk and interfacial self-assembly of multi-component polymers. Honors include a Sloan Fellowship, the Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, the Dillon Medal and Polymer Physics Prize of the American Physical Society, the Alpha Chi Sigma Award of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Fellowship in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and election to the National Academy of Engineering
	Song-I Han received her Doctoral Degree in Natural Sciences (Dr.rer.nat) from Aachen University of Technology, Germany, in 2001. She was awarded with the first Raymond Andrew Prize of the Ampere Society for an outstanding PhD thesis in magnetic resonance. She pursued her postdoctoral studies at the Max-Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany and the University of California, Berkeley under the sponsorship of the Feodor Lynen Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Dr. Han joined the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCSB in 2004. The key aspect of her research interest is the development of a technique called DNP-NMR, which will transform the most information rich spectroscopic technique NMR into a fast spectroscopic method. The DNP principle uses highly populated unpaired electron spins, which signal is effectively translated into NMR signal, so that the nucleus of choice in the molecule or material of interest is polarized to deliver several orders of magnitude sensitivity gain. This makes “real-time” monitoring of atomic details of biochemical processes such as protein folding, polymerization reactions and aggregation feasible.
	Craig J. Hawker received a B.Sc. degree and University Medal in chemistry from the University of Queensland in 1984 and a Ph.D. in bioorganic chemistry from the University of Cambridge in 1988 under the supervision of Prof. Sir Alan Battersby. Jumping into the world of polymer chemistry, he undertook a post-doctoral fellowship with Prof. Jean Fréchet at Cornell University from 1988 to 1990 and then returned to the University of Queensland as a Queen Elizabeth II Fellow from 1991 to 1993. In 1993, he became a research staff member at IBM Almaden Research Center, where he remained until moving to the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2004. Since 2001, he has also been adjunct professor of chemistry at the University of Queensland. Hawker has authored or coauthored 30 patents and more than 190 research publications. He has received numerous awards including the ACS Polymeric Materials: Science & Engineering (PMSE) Division's Arthur K. Doolittle Award in 1997, the International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry's Young Scientists Award in 2000, the ACS Polymer Chemistry Division's Carl S. Marvel Award in Creative Polymer Chemistry in 2001, and the Cooperative Research Award from PMSE in 2003. Most recently he was awarded the 2005 ACS Award in Applied Polymer Chemistry and the 2005 Dutch Polymer Award. Hawker is also editor of the Journal of Polymer Science, Part A: Polymer Chemistry, and a member of the editorial boards of several other journals.
	Alan Heeger obtained his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1961 and was a member of the Physics department at the University of Pennsylvania from 1962-82. In 1982 he moved to the University of California at Santa Barbara to become Professor of Physics. Professor Heeger was one of the founding members of the Materials Department and currently holds a joint appointment (Physics and Materials). Professor Heeger was the co-founder (with Prof. F. Wudl) and Director of the Institute for Polymers and Organic Solids at UCSB from 1983 until 1999. Professor and his colleagues at the MRL have done pioneering research in the area of semiconducting and metallic polymers. This class of novel materials has the electrical and optical properties of semiconductors and metals in combination with the processing advantages and mechanical properties of polymers. His current research interests lie in the area of transport in semiconducting polymers and light emission from semiconducting polymers (both photoluminescence and electroluminescence). His research group focuses on issues related to the fundamental electronic structure of this novel class of materials and carries out studies of light-emitting diodes (LEDs), light-emitting electrochemical cells (LECs), and lasers, all fabricated from semiconducting (conjugated) polymers. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2000), the Oliver E. Buckley Prize for Condensed Matter Physics (1983), the Balzan Prize for the Science of New Materials (1995), the President’s Medal for Distinguished Achievement from the University of Pennsylvania (2001), the Chancellor’s Medal from the University of California, Santa Barbara (2001), and a number of honorary doctorates. He is a member of the National Academy of Science (USA) (2001), the National Academy of Engineering (USA) (2002), and a foreign member of the Korean Academy of Science (2001).
	Jacob Israelachvili received his Ph.D. in Experimental Physics from the University of Cambridge (UK) in 1972 and joined UCSB in 1986. He has developed experimental techniques for directly measuring the forces between surfaces in vapors and liquids, including static (equilibrium) and dynamic (non-equilibrium) interactions at the molecular level. His current research covers various solid-liquid interfacial phenomena, measuring the physical properties of very thin films, and understanding the rheology and tribology of surfaces. This information is valuable for controlling colloidal and biological systems, and various industrial engineering processes. Israelachvili is the author of the text-book "Intermolecular and Surface Forces", published by Academic Press, a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Engineering, and a member of the NAS.
	Ed Kramer received a B.Ch.E. Degree in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University in 1962 and a Ph.D. in Metallurgy and Materials Science from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1966. He was a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow at Oxford before joining Cornell University in 1967 where he was appointed the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in 1988. In 1997 he joined the UCSB faculty where he holds a joint appointment in Materials and Chemical Engineering. Professor Kramer's current research activities focus on polymer interfaces using a variety of depth profiling and microscopic imaging methods. His group is interested in the fracture of block copolymers and polymer interfaces, from a micromechanical and molecular viewpoint, the kinetics of grafting reactions and instabilities at polymer melt interfaces and the ordering of block copolymer thin films as templated by interfacial interactions and external fields. His honors include membership in the National Academy of Engineering, the High Polymer Physics Prize of the American Physical Society, and the Swimburne Award of the Institute of Materials (UK).
	Dorothy Pak received her Ph.D. in 1996 from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. She came to UCSB as a postdoctoral scholar in the Marine Science Institute, where she has been a research scientist since 1997. Her scientific research focuses on marine proxy records of past climate change. She joined the MRL as Intern Coordinator in 1997 and became the Education Director in 2004. Her work at the MRL includes the design and implementation of science education outreach programs for K-12 students, teachers, undergraduates, and the public, with a particular focus on providing opportunities for diverse groups of participants.
	Cyrus Safinya is a Professor of Materials and Physics and an affiliated faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UCSB. He has a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics (Bates College, 1975) and a Ph.D. in Physics (M.I.T., 1981). Current research is focused on developing synthetic carriers of genes for delivery applications and establishing a fundamental understanding of interactions between molecules of the cell which lead to supramolecular-assembly. He initiated the Gordon Conference (1990) and the Materials Research Society Meeting (1989) on Complex Fluids. He recently served on the National Academy of Sciences-NRC committee on Developing a Federal Materials Facilities Strategy (1999). He is on the editorial boards of Molecular Therapy (American Society of Gene Therapy) and the Publishing Program on Molecular & Chemical Sciences (Gordon-Breach). Honors include a Rothschild Foundation Fellowship (Curie Institute, 1994) and election as a Fellow of the American Physical Society (1994) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1997).
	Ram Seshadri received his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 1995. After post-doctoral appointments at the Laboratoire CRISMAT, in Caen, France, and the Universität Mainz, Germany, he joined the Indian Institute of Science as an Assistant Professor in 1999. He moved to the Materials Department, UCSB in August 2002. Research in the Seshadri group encompasses a number of areas in the chemistry of inorganic materials, including new ways of preparing materials, magnetism in inorganic solids, oxide and chalcogenide nanoparticles, chemical patterning of inorganic materials on large (micrometer) length scales, seeking clues from nature on how to make new high-performance materials, and finally, using first principles electronic structure calculations to predict new material properties.
	Joan Emma Shea received a B.Sc. in Chemistry at McGill University and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Following postdoctoral studies at the Scripps Research Institute, she joined the department of Chemistry and the James Franck Institute at the University of Chicago in 2000. Joan moved to her present position as an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UCSB in 2001. Her research interests are in the fields of theoretical and computational biophysics. She is the recipient of the 2001 Cottage Hospital Biomedical Award, a 2002 NSF Career Award and a 2003 David and Lucile Packard Fellowship.
	Jim Speck obtained his Sc.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989. In 1990 he joined the faculty at UC Santa Barbara. Speck's research focuses on the relationship between thin film electronic materials growth, microstructure, and the relation between microstructure and physical properties. Much of the experimental work focuses on MOCVD or MBE growth studies coupled with structural characterization by transmission and scanning electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, and atomic force microscopy. Speck also has active research and collaborations in modeling microstructure and physical properties. His current work is largely centered on the wide bandgap nitrides, but he also has projects in to defect reduction in highly misfitting thin film semiconductors, the growth and microstructure of thin film oxides grown epitaxially on semiconductor or oxide substrates, and the structure and properties of epitaxial ferroelectric films. Speck is a member of the Materials Research Society, the American Physical Society, and the Microscopy Society of America.
	Susanne Stemmer did her doctoral work at the Max-Planck-Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart (Germany) and received Ph.D. in 1995 from the University of Stuttgart. After working as a postdoctoral research associate at Case Western Reserve University and the Catholic University in Leuven (Belgium), she joined the Physics Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago as a Visiting Assistant Professor. In 1999, she joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Material Science at Rice University as Assistant Professor. She moved to UCSB in the summer of 2002. Her research focuses on structure-property relationships in functional oxide films, employing atomic resolution analytical and imaging techniques in transmission electron microscopy. Honors include a NSF Faculty Early Career Development award (2000).
	Herb Waite is a professor in both the Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at UCSB. He was awarded an AB from Harvard and a PhD in biochemistry from Duke University before doing post-doctoral studies at the Universities of Copenhagen and Toronto. Waite held faculty appointments at the University of Connecticut Medical Center and the University of Delaware before moving to UCSB in 1999. He has pioneered the discovery of underwater adhesive chemistries in marine organisms. Primary present research focus is on structure-function relationships in load- and impact-bearing biomolecular materials.