Prize Recipient


Recipient Picture

John D. Joannopoulos
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Citation:

"For spearheading the development of ab-initio nano-photonics."

Background:

John D. Joannopoulos received his B.A. and Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1968 and 1974, respectively. He is on the Physics Faculty of at MIT since 1974 and was awarded the Francis Wright Davis Professor of Physics Chair in 1996. He was appointed Director of the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies in 2006.

Professor Joannopoulos' research spans two major directions. The first is devoted to creating a realistic and microscopic theoretical description of the geometric, electronic and dynamical structure properties of material systems. The second involves development of a new class of materials called photonic crystals, designed to control light with remarkable facility and produce effects that are impossible with conventional optics.

Professor Joannopoulos is an Elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the American Physical Society, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Fellow of the World technology Network, and former Alfred P. Sloan and John S. Guggenheim Felllow. He is recipient of the Student Council Graduate Teaching Award, William Buechner Teaching Prize, David Adler Lectureship Award, School of Science Graduate Teaching Award, and is one of Thompson ISI's most Highly Cited Researchers.


Selection Committee:

James Chelikowsky, Chair; S. Zhang; R. Swendsen; A. Hasenfratz; C. Gammie; L. Reina