Two physics faculty members elected to CAS Professorships

Swanlund Professor of Physics Nigel Goldenfeld leads the Biocomplexity Theme at the Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB) and is the director of the IGB-based Institute for Universal Biology, a component of the NASA Astrobiology Institute network. His diverse research interests embody the interdisciplinary spirit of the IGB, encompassing fields such as physics, microbiology, evolutionary biology, fluid mechanics, materials science, and quantitative finance. The common thread in his research is the study of complexity: how complex patterns develop over time and the process by which interactions between the simpler components of a complex system produce emergent states. Recent work by his group includes developing statistical theories for fluctuating turbulent flows; modeling the relationship between the dynamics of dislocations at the nanoscale and large scale properties of plastically-deformed solid matter; and, in collaboration with fellow IGB faculty member Bryan White, investigating the ecology of gut microbiota. Together with the late Professor Carl Woese, Goldenfeld developed a dynamical theory for the evolution of the genetic code, suggesting that life arose from an early collective state more than 3 billion years ago. 

 

Goldenfeld received his doctoral degree in physics from the University of Cambridge in 1982. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California at Santa Barbara, from 1982 to1985 before joining the Department of Physics at Illinois as an assistant professor in 1985. Goldenfeld is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

Swanlund Professor of Physics Klaus Schulten heads the Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science, which operates the National Institutes of Health Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics. He also co-directs the Center for the Physics of Living Cells in the Department of Physics, a National Science Foundation “Physics Frontiers Center.” His research is focused on molecular assembly and cooperation in biological cells, using large-scale computing for scientific discoveries and groundbreaking simulations. He was the first to demonstrate that parallel computers can be practically employed to solve the classical many-body problem in biomolecular modeling and was the first ever to accomplish a simulation of an entire life form, the satellite tobacco mosaic virus. Hundreds of thousands of researchers worldwide use his group’s software in molecular graphics (VMD) and modeling (NAMD), both on personal computers and at the world’s leading supercomputing centers. Schulten’s group recently discovered the molecular structure of the HIV capsid, comprising 64 million atoms—research that holds far-reaching implications for HIV pharmaceutical interventions.

 

Schulten holds a Diplom degree in physics from the University of Münster, Germany, and a doctoral degree in chemical physics from Harvard University. He was a junior group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry from 1974 to 1980 and worked as a professor of theoretical physics at the Technical University of Munich from 1980 to 1988, before joining the faculty at Illinois. Schulten is a Fellow of the Biophysical Society and of the American Physical Society. He is the recipient of many honors, most recently the 2013 Distinguished Service Award of the Biophysical Society and the 2012 Sidney Fernbach Award of the IEEE Computer Society.

 

The CAS brings together top scholars from diverse disciplines and backgrounds to encourage and reward excellence in all areas of academic scholarship. CAS Professors contribute to the center’s annual lecture series, as well as serving on committees that select recipients of CAS Associate and Fellow research appointments. Candidates for CAS Professorship may be nominated by a dean, director, or department head; they are rigorously evaluated by all current CAS Professors based on the strength of their academic record and history of prior awards and honors, before being elected by a majority vote of current CAS Professors.

 

Goldenfeld and Schulten join nine other CAS members from physics, CAS Professors David Ceperley, Laura Greene, Tony Leggett, and Dale Van Harlingen, and CAS Emeritus Professors Gordon Baym, Hans Frauenfelder, Miles Kline, David Pines, and Charlie Slichter.

 

Two physics faculty members hold 2013/14 CAS Associate Appointments; Brian DeMarco and James Eckstein have been awarded a semester’s release from teaching to pursue path-breaking research.