Prize Recipient

Jacob Jonathan Krich
Swathmore College

Citation:

"Correlation Length and Chirality of Isotropic Short-Range Order in Nematic and Chiral Nematic Liquid Crystals."

Background:

Jacob Krich received his BA in physics with Highest Honors from Swarthmore College in 2000. Though he postponed the decision to become a physicist until Swarthmore forced his hand, he now finds it difficult to remember considering anything else. He performed his thesis research with Professor Peter Collings at Swarthmore on the chiral nematic to isotropic phase transition of liquid crystals. He presented this work in a talk at the 2000 APS March Meeting. In previous years, he worked with Professor Giacinto Scoles at Princeton University and Professor Rosina Georgiadis at Boston University, with both projects focusing on alkanethiol self-assembled monolayers. Jacob received an award from Swarthmore for being the graduating senior with the strongest academic performance and another for the graduating physics major who performed at the highest level in both coursework and research. He is a member of Sigma Xi, Phi Beta Kappa, and, of course, the APS. Jacob is currently studying for a second BA in mathematics at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship. On completion of the degree, he will study for his Ph.D. in experimental condensed matter physics at Harvard University, supported by a fellowship from the Hertz Foundation.