Dr. George Whitesides
Dr. Fred Wudl
Dr. Grant Willson
Dr. John Rogers
Dr. George Malliaras
Dr. Ralph Nuzzo
Dr. Younan Xia
Dr. George Whitesides
Chairman and Head of Science Advisory Board
Currently the Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor at Harvard University, Dr. George Whitesides joined Harvard’s Department of Chemistry in 1982 and served as Department Chairman from 1986 to 1989. Prior to joining Harvard, he was a member of the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1963 to 1982. His present research interests include materials science, biophysics, surface science, polyvalency, microfluidics, optics, self-assembly, microfabrication, nanotechnology, and cell surface biochemistry.
Dr. Whitesides has held advisory positions on the National Research Council, National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and the American Philosophical Society, among other organizations. He has received dozens of honors, including the American Chemical Society (ACS) Award in Pure Chemistry (1975), the Arthur C. Cope Award (1995), the DARPA Award for Significant Technical Achievement (1996), the National Medal of Science (1998), the Von Hippel Award (2000), the Dan David Award (2005), the Welch Award (2005), and the Priestley Award (2007).
Dr. Whitesides is a co-founder of companies with a combined market capitalization of over $25 billion. In the early 80s, he co-founded biotechnology company Genzyme, which remains one of the world’s leading biotechnology companies; in 1993 he co-founded GelTex, which was acquired by Genzyme for $1.2 billion; and in 1996, he co-founded Theravance, which went public in 2004 and currently has a $1.1B market capitalization. Professor Whitesides’ more recent ventures include Surface Logix and WMR Biomedical.
George M. Whitesides was born in Louisville, Kentucky. He received an A.B. from Harvard University in 1960 and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1964.
Dr. Fred Wudl
Fred Wudl, Professor of Chemistry and Materials, Co-Director of the Center for Polymers and Organic Solids (CPOS), and Acting Associate Director, California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), received his B.S. (1964) and Ph.D. (1967) degree from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where his dissertation work was done with Professor Donald J. Cram. After postdoctoral research with R.B. Woodward at Harvard, he joined the faculty of the State University of New York at Buffalo. He then moved, first in 1972 to AT&T Bell Laboratories, and subsequently to UCSB in 1982, and then UCLA from 1997 to 2006. He is widely known for his work on organic conductors and superconductors with the discovery of the electronic conductivity of the precursor to the first organic metal and superconductor. His interest in electronically conducting polymers resulted in discovery of the first transparent organic conductor and the first self-doped polymers. Currently he is interested in the optical and electrooptical properties of processable conjugated polymers as well as in the organic chemistry of fullerenes and the design and preparation of self-mending and self-healing materials. He has received numerous awards and honors and has published over 500 papers.
Dr. Grant Willson
Grant Willson joined the faculties of the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin in 1993. He received his BS and Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley and an MS degree in Organic Chemistry from San Diego State University. He came to the University of Texas from his position as an IBM Fellow and Manager of the Polymer Science and Technology area at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California. He joined IBM after serving on the faculties of California State University, Long Beach and the University of California, San Diego.
His research can be characterized as the design and synthesis of functional organic materials with emphasis on materials for microelectronics. These include monomeric and polymeric liquid crystalline materials, polymeric non-linear optical materials, novel photoresist materials, etc. This work is supported by grants from both government and industry.
He is a member of the ACS, APS, SPIE, SPE, AAAS, ASEE, and Sigma Xi and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He serves on the editorial boards of several journals in polymer chemistry and materials science and is co-author of more than 300 journal publications. He is editor and author of several books and co-inventor on more than 25 issued patents.
His work in photoresist research has been honored by the Arthur Doolittle Award, the Chemistry of Materials Award, the Carothers Award from the American Chemical Society, the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award from the Federal Republic of Germany, the ACS Award for Cooperative Research in Polymer Science and Engineering, the SRC Technical Excellence Award, the SRC Aristotle Award and the Malcolm E. Pruitt Award from the CRC. He is the recipient of the 1999 National Academy of Sciences Award for Chemistry in Service to Society. He was appointed Fellow of the PMSE Division of ACS in 2001 and received the Applied Polymer Science Award from the ACS in that year. In 2003 he receievd the Photopolymer Science and Technology Award in Japan and in 2005 he received the Dehon Little Award from the AIChE, the Zernike Award from the SPIE and the Heroes in Chemistry Award from the ACS. He was the 2007 recipient of the SEMI North America Award. He was recently awarded the National Medal for Technology and Innovation by the President of the United States.
Dr. John Rogers
Professor John A. Rogers obtained BA and BS degrees in chemistry and in physics from the University of Texas, Austin, in 1989. From MIT, he received SM degrees in physics and in chemistry in 1992 and the PhD degree in physical chemistry in 1995. From 1995 to 1997, Rogers was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard University Society of Fellows. He joined Bell Laboratories as a Member of Technical Staff in the Condensed Matter Physics Research Department in 1997, and served as Director of this department from the end of 2000 to 2002. He currently holds the Lee J. Flory-Founder Chair in Engineering at University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign with a primary appointment in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
Rogers’ research includes fundamental and applied aspects of nano and molecular scale fabrication as well as materials and patterning techniques for unusual format electronic and photonic systems. He has published ~250 papers, and is co-inventor on >70 patents and patent applications, more than 40 of which are licensed or in active use by large companies and startups. His research has been recognized with many awards including, most recently, a MacArthur Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (2009), the IEEE George Smith Award for the best paper in IEEE Electron Device Letters (2009), the National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowship from the Department of Defense (2008), the Daniel Drucker Eminent Faculty Award from the University of Illinois (2007) and the Leo Hendrick Baekeland Award from the American Chemical Society (2007). He is a Fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE; 2009), the American Physical Society (APS; 2006), the Materials Research Society (MRS; 2007) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS; 2008).
Dr. George Malliaras
George Malliaras is an Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and the Lester B. Knight Director of the Cornell NanoScale Facility. Prof. Malliaras received a BS in Physics from the Aristotle University (Greece), and a PhD, cum laude, in Mathematics and Physical Sciences from the University of Groningen (the Netherlands). His thesis work was on photorefractivity in polymers. He then did a one year postdoc at the University of Groningen and a two year postdoc at the IBM Almaden Research Center (California), working on organic light emitting diodes. He joined Cornell University in 1998 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Prof. Malliaras is the recipient of the NSF Young Investigator Award, the DuPont Young Professor Grant, and the NY Academy of Sciences Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists. He is also the recipient of awards from the College of Engineering for his teaching and for his advising of freshmen. He is the chairman of the editorial board of the Journal of Materials Chemistry. He has also served as an overseas associate editor for the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics. He has organized international symposia for the APS, MRS, ACS, IEEE, and was the lead organizer of the 6th International Symposium on Functional pi-Electron Systems held in Ithaca, NY in 2004. Prof. Malliaras' research interests span several aspects of organic electronics, including structure and morphology of organic thin films, their processing and patterning, charge transport and injection in organic semiconductors, device physics, and applications of organic devices in biosensors. He is the author of 100+ publications in peer-reviewed journals that have received 3,000+ citations, and has given over 150 invited talks and seminars.
Dr. Ralph Nuzzo
Dr. Ralph Nuzzo is the G. L. Clark Chair Professor of Chemistry at
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, whose faculty he joined in
1991, and where he also holds an appointment as a Professor of Materials
Science and Engineering. Prior to joining the Illinois faculty he was a research fellow at Bell laboratories from 1980 to 1991 where he held the title of Distinguished Member of Staff in Research. His current research interests include energy technologies, materials chemistry, micro and nano-scale fabrication, optics and electronics, catalysis, sensing, and bioanalytical chemistry.
Professor Nuzzo is an advisor to numerous corporations, private
institutions and foundations, government agencies, and national laboratories.
He is the past director of the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory
and Center for the Microanalysis of Materials--a multi investigator research
organization and state of the art materials characterization facility operated
on the campus of the University of Illinois. He is the Senior Editor of Langmuir, the American Chemical Society Journal on Surface and Colloid Chemistry. His recognitions include the Adamson Award of the ACS, the
George E. Smith Award of the IEEE, the AVH Forschungspreis award, and a Wall
Street Journal Innovators Award for Semiconductors. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
the Alexander von Humboldt Society, and the American Vacuum Society.
In addition to his membership on Corporate Scientific Advisory Boards, Professor Nuzzo is a cofounder of Semprius, a company developing new forms of ultra high performance, low cost photovoltaic energy systems.
Ralph G. Nuzzo was born in Paterson, NJ in 1954. He earned an B.S. degree in Chemistry from Rutgers College in 1976 and a Ph. D. in Organic Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980.
Dr. Younan Xia
Dr. Xia is the James M. McKelvey Professor for Advanced Materials in Department of Biomedical Engineering, with joint appointments in Department of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering; Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science; Department of Chemistry; Department of Radiology, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics; Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (DBBS); Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center; and Diabetic Cardiovascular Disease Center at Washington University in St. Louis, MO.
Dr. Xia received his Ph.D. degree in physical chemistry from Harvard University (with Professor George M. Whitesides) in 1996, his M.S. degree in inorganic chemistry from University of Pennsylvania (with the late Professor Alan G. MacDiarmid, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 2000 ) in 1993, and his B.S. degree in chemical physics from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 1987. He came to the United States in 1991.
Dr. Xia has received a number of prestigious awards, including the 2009 MRS Fellow, 2006 NIH Director's Pioneer Award (NDPA), Leo Hendrik Baekeland Award (2005), Camille Dreyfus Teacher Scholar (2002), David and Lucile Packard Fellow in Science & Engineering (2000), Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow (2000), NSF Early Career Development Award (2000), ACS Victor K. LaMer Award (1999), and Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award (1997).
Dr. Xia is an Associate Editor of Nano Lettersand serves on the Advisory Boards of Angewandte Chemie International Edition (2011-), Accounts of Chemical Research (2010-), Journal of Biomedical Optics (2010-), Chemistry: An Asian Journal (2010-), Cancer Nanotechnology (2010-), Nano Research (2009-), Science of Advanced Materials (2009-), Nano Today (2006-), Langmuir (2005-), Chemistry of Materials(2005-2007), International Journal of Nanoscience (2004-), International Journal of Nanotechnology (2004-), and Advanced Functional Materials (2001-). He has also served as a Guest Editor of special issues for Advanced Materials six times and MRS Bulletin one time.