Prize Recipient

Lai-Sheng Wang
Brown University

"For advancing the chemistry and physics of metal clusters using photoelectron spectroscopy, and for innovative development of cluster sources and photoelectron techniques."

Lai-Sheng Wang received his bachelor degree in Chemistry from Wuhan University in 1982 and his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from University of California at Berkeley in 1990. He did postdoctoral research at Rice University before accepting a joint position between Washington State University and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He moved to Brown University in 2009 as Professor of Chemistry.

Wang is known for his photoelectron spectroscopic studies of atomic clusters, his pioneering work on free multiply-charged anions, and his development of cryogenic ion-trap technologies. His group discovered aromatic metal clusters, the golden pyramid and golden buckyballs, and planar boron clusters. His group also observed the first multiply-charged anions with negative electron binding energies. Current research interests in his lab involve the investigations of large boron clusters, transition metal and actinide clusters, high resolution photoelectron imaging of cold cluster anions, and solution syntheses of atom-precise gold nanoclusters.

Wang is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. He has received the Humboldt Research Award and the 2014 Earle K. Plyler Prize for Molecular Spectroscopy & Dynamics.

Michael Heaven, Chair; W.Kong; B. Pate; H. Allen; S. Bradforth