UCSB Participating Faculty

Gui Bazan received his Ph.D. from MIT in Inorganic Chemistry in 1991. After a postdoctoral appointment at Caltech, he joined the Chemistry Department at the University of Rochester in 1992. He joined UCSB in 1998. His current research programs are concerned with the photophysics and morphology of the organic solid state and the polymerization of olefins via homogenous catalysis. Of particular interest are strategies that control the organization of intermediate size organic chromophores in the solid state. Such methods are desirable since the relative orientation and distance of conjugated molecules control important useful properties such as conductivity and the photon-processing ability of the material. One ultimate goal is to program the maximum "best" morphology from the organization of atoms in the individual molecules. In the area of catalysis, the Bazan group is optimizing the multiple catalysts approach to highly branched polyethylene.
Tony Cheetham obtained his D. Phil. at the University of Oxford in 1971 and was a member of the Chemistry faculty at Oxford from 1974-91. In 1991 he moved to the University of California at Santa Barbara to become Professor in the Materials and Chemistry Departments, and, in 1992, Director of the newly-created Materials Research Laboratory. He has a long-standing interest in the development of tools for the structural elucidation of materials, including diffraction techniques employing synchrotron X-rays and neutrons, as well as solid state NMR and computer simulation methods. In the context of inorganic materials, his primary interests are in the synthesis and properties of novel open-framework systems, especially phosphates, and the study of transition metal oxides. Honors include election to a Fellowship of the Royal Society, London (1994), a Chaire Internationale de Recherche, Blaise Pascal, Paris (1997-1999), and Associate Fellowship of the Third World Academy of Sciences (1999).
Glenn Fredrickson obtained his Ph.D. at Stanford University in 1984 and subsequently joined AT&T Bell Laboratories, where he was named Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff in 1989. In 1990 he moved to the University of California at Santa Barbara, joining the faculties of the Chemical Engineering and Materials Departments. In 1998 he became Chair of Chemical Engineering. Professor Fredrickson has a long-standing interest in the statistical mechanics of complex fluids, including polymers, colloids, and glasses. His work is primarily theoretical and computational and has been most recently focused on strategies for anticipating the bulk and interfacial self-assembly of multi-component polymers. Honors include a NSF-PYI Award, a Sloan Fellowship, the Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, the Dillon Medal of the American Physical Society, and the Alpha Chi Sigma Award of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
Craig Hawker received a B.Sc. degree and University Medal in chemistry from the University of Queensland in 1984 and a Ph.D. in bioorganic chemistry from the University of Cambridge in 1988 under the supervision of Prof. Sir Alan Battersby. Jumping into the world of polymer chemistry, he undertook a post-doctoral fellowship with Prof. Jean Fréchet at Cornell University from 1988 to 1990 and then returned to the University of Queensland as a Queen Elizabeth II Fellow from 1991 to 1993. In 1993, he became a research staff member at IBM Almaden Research Center, where he remained until moving to the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2004. Since 2001, he has also been adjunct professor of chemistry at the University of Queensland. Hawker has authored or coauthored 30 patents and more than 190 research publications. He has received numerous awards including the ACS Polymeric Materials: Science & Engineering (PMSE) Division's Arthur K. Doolittle Award in 1997, the International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry's Young Scientists Award in 2000, the ACS Polymer Chemistry Division's Carl S. Marvel Award in Creative Polymer Chemistry in 2001, and the Cooperative Research Award from PMSE in 2003. Most recently he was awarded the 2005 ACS Award in Applied Polymer Chemistry and the 2005 Dutch Polymer Award. Hawker is also editor of the Journal of Polymer Science, Part A: Polymer Chemistry, and a member of the editorial boards of several other journals.
Alan Heeger obtained his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1961 and was a member of the Physics department at the University of Pennsylvania from 1962-82. In 1982 he moved to the University of California at Santa Barbara to become Professor of Physics. Professor Heeger was one of the founding members of the Materials Department and currently holds a joint appointment (Physics and Materials). Professor Heeger was the co-founder (with Prof. F. Wudl) and Director of the Institute for Polymers and Organic Solids at UCSB from 1983 until 1999. Professor and his colleagues at the MRL have done pioneering research in the area of semiconducting and metallic polymers. This class of novel materials has the electrical and optical properties of semiconductors and metals in combination with the processing advantages and mechanical properties of polymers. His current research interests lie in the area of transport in semiconducting polymers and light emission from semiconducting polymers (both photoluminescence and electroluminescence). His research group focuses on issues related to the fundamental electronic structure of this novel class of materials and carries out studies of light-emitting diodes (LEDs), light-emitting electrochemical cells (LECs), and lasers, all fabricated from semiconducting (conjugated) polymers. Honors include numerous honorary degrees, election to Fellowship of the American Physical Society, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow, Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, Buckley Prize in Solid State Physics (1983), Balzan Prize for the Science of New Materials (1995) and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2000).
Ed Kramer received a B.Ch.E. Degree in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University in 1962 and a Ph.D. in Metallurgy and Materials Science from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1966. He was a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow at Oxford before joining Cornell University in 1967 where he was appointed the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in 1988. In 1997 he joined the UCSB faculty where he holds a joint appointment in Materials and Chemical Engineering. Professor Kramer's current research activities focus on polymer interfaces using a variety of depth profiling and microscopic imaging methods. His group is interested in the fracture of block copolymers and polymer interfaces, from a micromechanical and molecular viewpoint, the kinetics of grafting reactions and instabilities at polymer melt interfaces and the ordering of block copolymer thin films as templated by interfacial interactions and external fields. His honors include membership in the National Academy of Engineering, the High Polymer Physics Prize of the American Physical Society, and the Swimburne Award of the Institute of Materials (UK).
Eric McFarland received his Ph.D. in 1987 from MIT and an MD from Harvard in 1988. After postdoctoral training in general surgery, McFarland joined the MIT faculty in Nuclear Engineering. He joined the UCSB faculty in 1991 where his research direction evolved into condensed matter science and catalysis related to energy production and utilization. He has been active in several industrial programs at the forefront of chemical engineering and spent time on a leave of absence as a technology director participating in the creation of Symyx Technologies, a technology company devoted to combinatorial materials science. His research currently focuses on the coupling of chemistry to electro-optic behavior in photoelectrocatalytic materials, nanocluster metal catalysts, and reactive metal oxides for hydrocarbon conversion.
Quyen Nguyen obtained her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from UCLA in 2001. She received several awards including the Dissertation Award from the University of California for outstanding performance in research and the Outstanding Innovative Research Award from the Advanced Materials. She was a research associate in the Department of Chemistry and the Nanocenter at Columbia University working with Louis Brus and Colin Nuckolls. She also spent time at IBM Research center at T. J. Watson (Yorktown Heights, NY) working with Richard Martel and Phaedon Avouris. She joined the faculty at UCSB in 2004. Her research focuses on understanding the photophysics and electronic properties of novel organic and metal-organic hybrid materials for applications in molecular electronics, transistors, photovoltaics, and sensors. Particularly, she is interested in how intermolecular interactions influence the photophysics, electronic properties, and charge transport in these materials both at the nanoscale and in the bulk using various scanning probe techniques and femto-second laser spectroscopy, as well as how to control these intermolecular interactions to tune material properties. Her group seeks to correlate the structure-function-property relationship and also work closely with synthetic chemistry and theory groups to design new materials. She is the recipient of the 2005 ONR Young Investigator Award and the 2006 NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award.
Susannah Scott obtained her Ph.D. from Iowa State University of Science and Technology in Inorganic Chemistry in 1991. After a NATO postdoctoral appointment at the Institut de recherches sur la catalyse in Lyon, France, she joined the Chemistry Department at the University of Ottawa in 1994. She moved to UCSB in 2002 where she is jointly appointed in Chemical Engineering and Chemistry. Her research interests center on well-defined supported catalysts for olefin polymerization, metathesis and oxidation. Her group combines organometallic chemistry and surface chemistry to prepare and characterize the active sites of catalytic materials.
Galen Stucky received his Ph.D. in 1962 from Iowa State University. After postdoctoral study at MIT, he held positions at the University of Illinois, Sandia National Laboratory and DuPont Central Research and Development Department before joining the UCSB faculty in 1985. Dr. Stucky has been active in the American Chemical Society, serving as Associate Editor of the Journal of Inorganic Chemistry and as Chairman of the Inorganic Division. His research currently focuses on the design, synthesis and characterization of new materials with an emphasis on understanding interface and nucleation chemistry. Molecular sieves and mesoporous (15 - 200 ũ) electro-optic and biomaterials are being synthesized and studied. Recent honors include Chairman, Solid State Subdivision, Inorganic Chemistry (1999), one of three lecturers at the Symposium in Honor of the 100th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Chemical Institutes at "Hessische Strasse" (2000), and the Humboldt Research Prize, 2000.
Fred Wudl received a B.S. (1964) and a Ph.D. (1967) degree from 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. In 1972 he moved to AT&T Bell Laboratories and ten years later he moved to UCSB, where he served as Professor of Chemistry and Materials and Associate Director of the Institute for Polymers and Organic Solids. In 1997 he moved to UCLA, where he is currently the Dean M. Willard Professor of Chemistry and Materials and Director of the Exotic Materials Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Wudl is widely known for his work on organic conductors and superconductors. He discovered the electronic conductivity of the precursor to the first organic metal and superconductor. In the recent past he has been interested in electronically conducting polymers, where he discovered 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 self-healing polymers the organic chemistry of fullerenes and the design and preparation of organic ferromagnets, particularly ferromagnetic organic metals. Recent honors include the Wheland Medal, University of Chicago (1994), The "Giulio Natta" Medal, Italian Chemical Society, Rome, Italy (1994); the American Chemical Society Award for Chemistry of Materials (1996); and Bayer Lecturer, Cornell University (1996).