Posts in category: Science

John Macleod Ball obtained his B.Sc. in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge in 1969 and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in 1972 from the University of Sussex. He completed his postdoctoral research fellowship at Heriot Watt university in Scotland and at Brown university in the U.S.A. Between 1974-1996, he was at Heriot Watt university, where he took on various appointments, including a Professorship of Applied Analysis. Since 1996, he has been a Sedleian professor of natural philosophy at Oxford. He is the director of Oxford Center for Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations and a fellow of the queen’s college at the same university.

Professor Sir John Ball has made fundamental mathematical contributions to nonlinear partial differential equations, the calculus of variations and their applications to materials science and liquid crystals. He has pioneering work giving the first global existence theorems for energy minimizing configurations in nonlinear elasticity under realistic hypotheses on the material response and the first rigorous treatment of non-interpenetration of matter and cavitation in solids. He worked with Richard James to develop the widely used mathematical theory of martensitic phase transformations and their microstructure as well as a theory of metastability based on geometric incompatibility of parent and product phases. He is well known for his groundbreaking work on infinite-dimensional dynamical systems, in which his method is widely used for proving the existence of global attractors for nonlinear wave equations and other systems. His work on the Landau-de Gennes theory has greatly stimulated the worldwide study of mathematics of liquid crystals. In particular, his fundamental contributions with zarnescu towards orientability of director configurations, and the satisfaction of eigenvalue constraints on the de Gennes Q-tensor with Majumdar.

He published over 70 articles, and 7 books, and he is a member of the editorial board of many reputable scientific journals. He is also a member of several scientific societies and former president of the International Mathematical Union.

Professor Sir John Ball received many distinguished awards and honors including Keith Prize, Sylvester Medal and John von Neumann Prize. He was knighted in 2006 for his services to science.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Laurens Molenkamp studied Physical Chemistry in Groningen University (1974-1980) from which he also obtained his Ph.D. in 1985. Throughout the next 10 years, he became involved in industrial research at the Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. In 1994, he took up the post of Associate Professor at RWTH, Aachen University in Aachen, Germany, and in 1999, he became the Chair of Experimental Physics and Head of the Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) Unit at the Physics Institute in the University of Würzburg, Germany.

Professor Molenkamp’s research focuses on quantum transport in nanostructures, semiconductor spintronics and optical spectroscopy of semiconductors. He is famous for discovering the quantum spin Hall effect, which in turn opened up a whole new field of topological insulators. He has also developed novel methods for creating and manipulating spin-polarized charge carrier states in semiconductors, which have the potential to develop magnetic storage devices.

He has published around 375 papers in major international journals and has been a Thomson-Reuter Citation Laureate in 2014. He has delivered many invited lectures and several named colloquia. He served as an Editor-in-Chief of Semiconductor Science and Technology (2001-2011), Divisional Associate Editor of Physical Review Letters (001-2007), Editor of EPJ Applied Physics (2004-2015) and presently is Lead Editor of Physical Review B (2012).

Professor Molenkamp’s outstanding achievements have been recognized by several prizes and honors, including the Europhysics Prize (2010), American Physical Society Oliver E. Buckley Prize (2012), Frontier Physics Prize (2013), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation DFG (2014) and the Stern-Gerlach Medal (2017). He was an Honorary Professor at the Institute of Semiconductors of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the Institute of Physics and the American Physics Society and Foreign Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Daniel Loss studied theoretical physics at the University of Zurich (1979-1983) from which he obtained a Ph.D. in Statistical Mechanics in 1985. His academic career spans around 35 years. He worked first as a Post-doctoral Research Associate at Zurich (1985-1989) then moved to the USA as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow (with Nobel Laureate Prof. A. J. Leggett) at the University of Illinois, Urbana (1989-1991) then as a Research Scientist at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York (1991-1993). Thereafter, he was appointed as an Assistant Professor, then as an Associate Professor of Physics (1993-1995; 1995-1996, respectively) at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. In 1996, he returned to Basel University as Professor (Ordinarius) of Theoretical Physics and chaired the Department of Physics three times between 1998 and 2010. He has also served as a Co-Director of the Swiss National Center of Competence and Research in Nanoscale Science and is currently a Professor of Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics at Basel University, Director of the Basel

Center for Quantum Computing and Quantum Coherence and Co-Director of the Swiss Nanoscale Center at the Swiss Nanoscience Institute.

Professor Loss has made seminal contributions to the quantum theory of spin dynamics and spin coherence in semiconductors, particularly in quantum dots. Together with D.P. DiVincenzo proposed the concept of a spin quantum computer of exceptionally high speed and storage capacity, using electron spins trapped in quantum dots as qubits. This and many other ground-breaking predictions by Loss and his team have been confirmed experimentally by other groups around the world and have inspired much further research into the basic physics and practical applications of spin-related phenomena and, in particular, spin qubits in developing powerful quantum computers, and in structures such as semiconducting quantum dots, nanowires, carbon nanotubes, graphene, and molecular magnets. Professor Loss has also made pioneering contributions to low-dimensional interacting systems (discovered new states of matter), to topological quantum memories and topological quantum computing based on Majorana fermions and parafermions.

Professor Loss has authored over 435 papers, with a total Web of Science (Google Scholar) citations of 24,830 (35,720) and an H-index of 73 (85). His accomplishments in the field of solid state quantum information processing have been recognized by more than 415 invited talks at international conferences, and by major awards and honors, namely the Humboldt Research Prize (2005), the Marcel Benoist Prize, the highest scientific honor in Switzerland (2010), Simon Distinguished Visiting Scholar KITP (2013) and the Blaise Pascal Medal in Physics from the European Academy of Sciences (2014). He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (2000) and the Institute of Physics (UK, 2005) and an Elected Member of the European Academy of Sciences (2013) and the German National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina (2014).

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Vamsi Mootha completed his high school education at Kelly High School in Beaumont, Texas in 1989, and received his B.Sc. (Honors, with Distinction) in Mathematical and Computational Science at Stanford University in 1993, and M.D. (cum laude) from Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard Medical School in 1998, his thesis being focused on mitochondrial energetics. Thereafter, he completed three-year Internship and Residency program in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston (1998 to 2001), followed by another three years Post-Doctoral Fellowship (2001-2004) at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at Cambridge, MA, during which he worked on regulatory control in mitochondrial energetics. He is currently a Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, a Professor of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, an Investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and a Senior Research Member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.

Professor Mootha and his team combine the tools of genomics with rigorous computation and biochemical physiology to explore mitochondrial function in health and disease. His major research accomplishments include characterization of the mitochondrial proteome, discovery of more than 15 novel mitochondrial disease genes by integrative genomics and use of targeted exome sequencing for clinical diagnostics. He also discovered the molecular machinery of mitochondrial calcium uniporter and showed that a subtle decline in mitochondrial gene expression underlies type 2 Diabetes and that the mitochondrial one-carbon pathway is altered in many diseases.

Professor Mootha’s outstanding contributions have been recognized by several honors including, the Grand Award of the 40th International Science and Engineering Fair (1989), Stanford University David Starr Jordan Scholarship (1990), HHMI Postdoctoral Fellowship for Physicians (2001), John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship (2004), NIH Wednesday Afternoon Lectureship (2006), Daland Prize of the American Philosophical Society (2008), MGH Martin Prize for Basic Research (2011), Keilin Medal of the Biochemical Society (2014) and the prestigious Padma Shri Prize of the Government of India (2014), and membership of the National Academy of Sciences.

Professor Mootha serves as editorial board member of Molecular Systems Biology, Cell Metabolism, and European Molecular Biology Organization Journal as well as ad hoc reviewer for many prestigious journals such as Science, Nature, Cell, New England Journal of Medicine, Genomic Research and others. Besides, he holds several other responsibilities as member of scientific advisory boards, grant reviewer and chairman, co-chairman or organizer of national and international symposia.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Stephen Jackson obtained his B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of Leeds in 1983, and completed his Ph.D. research on yeast RNA splicing at the Imperial College of Science and Technology and the University of Edinburgh. Thereafter, he carried out post-doctoral research on the regulation of transcription at the University of California, Berkeley. Upon his return to the U.K. in 1991, he was appointed as a Junior Group Leader at the Gurdon Institute (formally known as Wellcome CRC Institute) and became Senior Group Leader and Fellow of St. John’s College at Cambridge University in 1995. He was also appointed as Fredrick James Quick Professor of Biology at the Department of Zoology from 1995 to 2009, then Fredrick James Quick and Cancer Research U.K. Professor of Biology at the Department of Biochemistry at Cambridge University from 2009. He is currently the Head of the Cancer Research U.K. Laboratories, and the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research U.K. Gurdon Institute.

Professor Jackson’s research focuses primarily on understanding how cells detect and repair DNA damage. Towards this objective, his laboratory uses a broad range of techniques and approaches to obtain a deeper insight of the cellular pathways that will yield a better understanding of the diseases that can arise when such pathways are lost e.g., hereditary and sporadic cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, developmental defects, immune deficiencies, infertility and premature aging, and will work on new treatment strategies for these diseases. Professor Jackson is a prolific author, with many of his publications appearing in prestigious journals. He is credited for his innovative approach towards rendering his findings into tangible therapeutic products for cancer treatment. In 1997, he founded KuDOS Pharmaceuticals, a drug discovery and drug-development company which seeks to develop new treatments for cancer based on knowledge of cellular DNA damage response pathways. The company was acquired by AstraZeneca in 2005. In 2011, he founded MISSION Therapeutics to develop drugs and improve management of life-threatening diseases, particularly cancer.

Professor Jackson’s outstanding contributions towards understanding DNA repair and DNA damage response signaling pathways have earned him many awards including the Biochemical Society Glaxo Smith Award (2008), the title of BBSRC Innovator of the Year (2009) and the Ganga A. and Ch. Van Hock Prize (2015). He is also a Member of the Biochemical Society, the Cambridge Philosophical Society, and the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a member of numerous national and international scientific committees and advisory boards in his field of specialization.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Michael Grätzelreceived his Diploma from the Free University of Berlin in 1968 and his Ph.D. in Natural Sciences from the Technical University of Berlin in 1970, where he conducted his research under Professor Arnim Henglein at the Hahn Meitner Institute for Nuclear Sciences. He spent the following two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Radiation Laboratory in the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, U.S.A. In 1976, he obtained Habilitation/Privat Dozent at the Free University of Berlin. He was also Mary Upson Visiting Professor at Cornell University, a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore, an Adjunct Professor at King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia, an Invited Professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the École Nationale Supérieure de Cachan (Paris), and an Honorary Part-Time Chemistry Chair at Delft University of Technology. Professor Michael Grätzel is currently a Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the Director of the Laboratory of Photonics at the Institute of Physical Chemistry, and a Distinguished Scientist at King Abdul-Aziz University.

Professor Grätzel pioneered the research on energy and electron transfer reactions in mesoscopic-materials and their optoelectronic applications. His foundational and practical discoveries have had and will continue to have a major impact on the practical realization of solar-energy conversion. He discovered a new type of solar cells based on dye sensitized nanocrystalline oxide films. These world-famous Grätzel solar cells, as they are called, are simple and relatively inexpensive to manufacture, while possessing unique practical properties including flexibility and transparency.

Professor Grätzel’s groundbreaking contributions have earned him worldwide recognition and numerous awards and honors, including the Balzan Prize, the Galvani Medal, Gerischer Award, Dutch Havinga Award and Medal, International Prize of the Japanese Society of Coordination Chemistry, ENI-Italgas Energy Prize, the Millenium European Prize of Innovation, Faraday Medal of the British Royal Society, the Marcel Benoist Prize, Albert Einstein World Award of Science, Gutenberg Research Award, Paul Karrer Gold Medal, and the McKinsey Venture Award (Twice). In addition, he received honorary doctorate degrees from 10 universities, namely the University of Liège and Hasselt University in Belgium, Roskilde University in Denmark, Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, Nanyang Technical University in Singapore, Lund University and Uppsala University in Sweden, the University of Nova Gorica in Slovenia Delft University of Technology in the Netherland and Turin University in Italy. In 2009, he was named a Distinguished Honorary Professor by the Chinese Academy of Science and the Huazhong University of Science and Technology. He is a Member of the Swiss Chemical Society and the Bulgarian Academy of Science, Fellow of the European Academy of Science and the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and elected Honorary Member of the Société Vaudoise de Sciences Naturelles. He is also a frequent guest scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado.

With more than 1200 publications, two books, over 60 inventions, a Hirsch-Index of 163, and about 120,000 total citations, Professor Grätzel ranks as one of the 10 most cited chemists in the world.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

Omar Yaghi moved to the USA to pursue college education. Initially, he entered Hudson Valley Community College then transferred to the State University of New York (SUNY) in Albany, New York, where he obtained his bachelor’s degree in 1985. Thereafter, he moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from which he obtained his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1990 and was subsequently awarded a two-year post-doctoral fellowship by the National Science Foundation at Harvard University.

Professor Yaghi joined the teaching staff of Arizona State University from 1992-1998; the University of Michigan from 1999-2006, and the University of California, Los Angeles from 2006-2011. In 2012, he was appointed as the first James and Neeltje Trettor Chair of Chemistry at the University of California in Berkeley. He was appointed as a Co-Director of Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute at UC Berkeley the following year, and co-director of the California Research Alliance by BASF in 2014.

Professor Yaghi has made seminal contributions to the field of metal organic frameworks (MOFs). In the last two decades, he developed MOFs through highly innovative approaches to construct novel materials, and explored their applications in various fields, including encapsulation of biomolecules, and capturing of gasses such as carbon dioxide and hydrogen.

His outstanding contributions have gained him numerous awards and honors. For his early accomplishments in the design and synthesis of new materials, he was recognized by the Exxon Award of the American Chemical Society in 1998 and the Sacconi Medal of the Italian Chemical Society in 2004. For his ground-breaking research on hydrogen storage, the monthly magazine Popular Science has placed him among the ten most brilliant scientists and engineers in the United States in 2006. In 2007, Professor Yaghi received the US Department of Energy Hydrogen Program Award, and the Material Research Society’s Medal for his pioneering research into the theory, design, synthesis and applications of MOFs. He was also awarded the Newcomb-Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for the best paper published in Science in 2008. In 2009, he received the Chemistry of Materials Award of the American Chemical Society.

Professor Yaghi published around 200 scientific papers in prestigious journals, with a total of more than 60,000 citations. Professor Yaghi was selected from among 6000 chemists as the second most cited chemist in the world.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.