APS Member History

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41	Name:	Dr. A. Francis Birch
	Institution:	Harvard University
	Year Elected:	1955
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Subdivision:	105. Physical Earth Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1903
	Death Date:	2/1/92

42	Name:	Raymond T. Birge
	Year Elected:	1943
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1887
	Death Date:	3/22/80

43	Name:	Dr. Robert J. Birgeneau
	Institution:	University of California, Berkeley
	Year Elected:	2006
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Subdivision:	106. Physics
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1942

	Robert J. Birgeneau became the ninth chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, on September 22, 2004. An internationally distinguished physicist, he is a leader in higher education and is well known for his commitment to diversity and equity in the academic community. He stepped down from the Chancellorship in May 2013 and returned to the faculty in the Department of Physics at Berkeley. Before coming to Berkeley, Birgeneau served four years as president of the University of Toronto. He previously was Dean of the School of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he spent 25 years on the faculty. He is a fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of London, the American Philosophical Society and other scholarly societies. He has received many awards for teaching and research and is one of the most cited physicists in the world for his work on the fundamental properties of materials. In 2006, Birgeneau received a special Founders Award from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences along with President John Hennessy of Stanford University and filmmaker George Lucas. Established in the 225th anniversary year of the Academy, this award honors men, women and institutions that have advanced the ideals and embody the spirit of the Academy founders - a commitment to intellectual inquiry, leadership and active engagement. In 2008, Birgeneau and President Nancy Kantor of Syracuse University received the 2008 Carnegie Corporation Academic Leadership Award as "Champions of Excellence and Equity in Education." The American Institute of Physics awarded him the Karl Taylor Compton Medal for Leadership in Physics in 2012. In 2015 he was honored with the 2015 Darius and Susan Anderson Distinguished Service Award of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2016 he was chosen as the National Science Board's Vannevar Bush Awardee. A Toronto native, Birgeneau received his B.Sc. in mathematics from the University of Toronto in 1963 and his Ph.D. in physics from Yale University in 1966. He served on the faculty of Yale for one year, spent one year at Oxford University, and was a member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories from 1968 to 1975. He joined the physics faculty at MIT in 1975 and was named Chair of the Physics Department in 1988 and Dean of Science in 1991. He became the 14th president of the University of Toronto on July 1, 2000. He and his wife, Mary Catherine, have four grown children and eight grandchildren.

44	Name:	George D. Birkhoff
	Year Elected:	1921
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1884
	Death Date:	11/12/44

45	Name:	Dr. Garrett Birkhoff
	Institution:	Harvard University
	Year Elected:	1960
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Subdivision:	104. Mathematics
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1911
	Death Date:	11/22/96

46	Name:	Dr. David Blackwell
	Institution:	University of California, Berkeley
	Year Elected:	1990
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Subdivision:	104. Mathematics
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1919
	Death Date:	July 8, 2010

	David Blackwell was professor of statistics and mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley from 1954 until his retirement in 1989, when he was named Professor Emeritus of Statistics. He also held positions at Southern University, Clark College and Howard University and worked for the RAND Corporation between 1948 and 1950, where he developed an interest in game theory. His research contributions combine great breadth with deep creativity, and in several areas his work set the course for subsequent research. He was one of the first major contributors in the field of sequential analysis, a subject that is of wide practical interest, and his analysis of Bayesian sequential procedures had a major impact on further developments in this field. His work on the theory of dynamic programming was central to the development of this immensely practical and widely applicable field. Dr. Blackwell has served as president of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and has also been vice president of the American Statistical Association, the International Statistical Institute and the American Mathematical Society. In 1965 he became the first African American named to the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Blackwell is the recipient of numerous honors, including the von Neumann Theory Prize, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He died on July 8, 2010, in Berkeley, at age 91.

47	Name:	Gilbert A. Bliss
	Year Elected:	1926
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1876
	Death Date:	5/8/51

48	Name:	Felix Bloch
	Year Elected:	1965
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1905
	Death Date:	9/10/83

49	Name:	Dr. Nicolaas Bloembergen
	Institution:	Harvard University
	Year Elected:	1982
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Subdivision:	106. Physics
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1920
	Death Date:	September 5, 2017

	Nicolaas Bloembergen was born in Dordrecht, the Netherlands, in 1920. He obtained his Phil. Cand. and Phil. Drs. Degrees in physics at the University of Utrecht. In 1946 he came to the United States and worked with Professor E.M. Purcell at Harvard on Nuclear Magnetic Relaxation. This was the title of his Ph.D. thesis, submitted at the University of Leiden in 1948, where he was a research fellow in the Kamerkingh Onnes Laboratory. He returned to Harvard University in 1949 as a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows, became Associate Professor of Applied Physics in 1951, Gordon McKay Professor in 1957, Rumford Professor of Physics in 1974, and Gerhard Gade University Professor in 1981. Since 1990 he has been professor emeritus. He then held an honorary professorship in the Optical Sciences Center at the University of Arizona. His research was concerned with nuclear and electron paramagnetic resonance, microwave masers and nonlinear optics. He had supervised fifty-seven Ph.D. theses, and a similar number of post-doctoral fellows have worked in his laboratory. He was the author or co-author of over three hundred scientific papers published in professional journals and had written two monographs: Nuclear Magnetic Relaxation (republished 1961) and Nonlinear Optics (1965). He was a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1981, the Lorentz Medal of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences in 1978, and the National Medal of Science in 1974. He also received the Medal of Honor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the Frederick Ives Medal of the Optical Society of America and the Stuart Ballantine Medal of the Franklin Institute. He was a member of various academies in the United States and abroad. In addition to his service on the faculty of the Arts and Sciences at Harvard University for four decades, he was a visiting professor in Paris, Leiden, Bangalore, Munich, Berkeley, and Pasadena. Furthermore, he had served on numerous advisory committees of U.S. government agencies and of industrial and academic institutions and on several editorial boards of scientific publications. In 1991 he was president of the American Physical Society. Nicolaas Bloembergen died September 5, 2017, in Tucson, Arizona, at the age of 97.

50	Name:	Marston T. Bogert
	Year Elected:	1909
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1869
	Death Date:	3/21/54

51	Name:	Dr. Dawn A. Bonnell
	Institution:	University of Pennsylvania
	Year Elected:	2024
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Subdivision:	103. Engineering
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1961

	Dr. Bonnell is the is the Henry Robinson Towne Professor of Engineering and Applied Science and the Senior Vice Provost for Research at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her B.A. and PhD from the University of Michigan and was a Fulbright scholar to the Max-Planck-Institute in Stuttgart, Germany. Dr. Bonnell is recognized for advances in atomic imaging and local electronic structure of complex surfaces, obtaining the first scanning probe images of atoms on oxide surfaces, a result that generated a new field of research. She has advanced probes of local properties, interfaces in electronic and plasmonic hybrid nanostructures, and ferroelectric nanolithography. She has served as President AVS: Science and Technology Society and vice President of the American Ceramic Society. She has authored or coauthored over 250 publications and edited or coedited seven books. Dr. Bonnell received the Sosman Award from the American Ceramic Society, the AVS Nanotechnology Award, the Staudinger/Durrer Medal from ETH Zurich, and several distinguished lectureships. She is a fellow of the Materials Research Society, Honorary Fellow of the AVS, Distinguished Life Fellow of the ACerS, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

52	Name:	Ira S. Bowen
	Year Elected:	1940
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1898
	Death Date:	2/6/73

53	Name:	Wilmot Hyde Bradley
	Year Elected:	1963
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1899
	Death Date:	4/12/79

54	Name:	Dr. Lewis M. Branscomb
	Institution:	JFK School of Government, Harvard University
	Year Elected:	1970
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Subdivision:	106. Physics
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1926
	Death Date:	May 31, 2023

	Lewis M. Branscomb is Professor Emeritus of Public Policy and Corporate Management, Emeritus Director of the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program and a member of the Board of Directors of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. At present, he is also Adjunct Professor at the University of California, San Diego's School of International Relations and Pacific Studies and Distinguished Research Fellow, Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California. His AB in physics is from Duke University in 1945, summa cum laude, and his Ph.D. degree in physics from Harvard University in 1950, after which he was Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows. A research physicist at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology) from 1951-69, he was Director of NBS from 1969-72. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Science, National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine. In 1972 Dr. Branscomb was named vice president and chief scientist of IBM and a member of the Corporate Management Board, serving until his retirement in 1986. He also served as chairman of the National Science Board from 1980-84. Dr. Branscomb is a former director of Mobil Corp. and General Foods Corp. and serves on the Board of Lord Corporation. He is an emeritus trustee of Vanderbilt University, member of the C.S. Draper Laboratory Corporation, and emeritus Trustee of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He is a former Overseer of Harvard University. He has served five presidents in various advisory and executive positions. Dr. Branscomb's awards include the National Science Board's Vannevar Bush Award (2001); the Rockefeller Public Service Award (1957-58); the Gold Medal for Exceptional Service from the U.S. Department of Commerce (1961); the Arthur Bueche Prize of the National Academy of Engineering (1987); and the Okawa Prize in Communications and Informatics (1999). He pioneered the spectroscopy of atomic and molecular negative ions and studied their role in stellar atmospheres and chemical aeronomy. His current research is on early-stage high-tech innovation, innovation policy in China, business development in the field of information technology, the role of science and technology in countering terrorism, and a new policy paradigm for federal support of basic research. His recent books include (with Philip Auerswald, Todd LaPorte and Erwann Michel-Kerjan) Seeds of Disaster, Roots of Response (2006); (with Richard Klausner) Making the Nation Safer: S&T for Countering Terrorism (2002); (with Philip E. Auerswald) "Between Invention and Innovation: An Analysis of the Funding for Early Stage Technology Development" (2003); (with Philip Auerswald, Nicholas Demos and Brian K. Min) "Understanding Private-Sector Decision Making for Early-Stage Technology Development" (2003); (with Philip Auerswald) "Start-Ups and Spin-offs: Collective Entrepreneurship Between Invention and Innovation," in The Emergence of Entrepreneurship Policy: Governance, Start-Ups, and Growth in the Knowledge Economy (2003); (with Philip Auerswald) Taking Technical Risks: How Innovators, Managers and Investors Manage Risk in High Tech Innovation (2001); (with Fumio Kodama and Richard Florida) "Industrializing Knowledge: University-Industry Linkages in Japan and the United States (1999); and (with James Keller) Investing in Innovation: Creating a Research and Innovation Policy that Works (1998).

55	Name:	Dr. John I. Brauman
	Institution:	Stanford University
	Year Elected:	2004
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Subdivision:	102. Chemistry and Chemical Biochemistry
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1937
	Death Date:	08/23/2024

	John I. Brauman earned a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1963 and joined the faculty at Stanford University later that year. He was named J. G. Jackson-C. J. Wood Professor of Chemistry in 1972, and since 1999 he has also served as Cognizant Dean for Natural Sciences at Stanford. Dr. Brauman was the first to show that the relative order of acidities and basicities of many simple organic compounds are reversed between gas phase and solution. He was then able to rationalize both the gas-phase and solution behavior and put them on a much more substantial footing. Dr. Brauman discovered a wealth of information about the dynamics of gas-phase ionic reactions, which again has revolutionized scientific thought. Dr. Brauman was the first to measure accurate electron affinities of molecules larger than diatomics, eventually determining these important quantities for a substantial number of chemically interesting important organic radicals. He has received the American Chemical Society's Award in Pure Chemistry in 1973, the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award (1986) and the James Flack Norris Award in Physical-Organic Chemistry (1986). Recent honors include the National Academy of Sciences Award in the Chemical Sciences (2001), the Linus Pauling Medal (2002) and the J. Willard Gibbs Medal (2003). Dr. Brauman was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1976.

56	Name:	Dr. Ronald Breslow
	Institution:	Columbia University
	Year Elected:	1980
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Subdivision:	102. Chemistry and Chemical Biochemistry
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1931
	Death Date:	October 25, 2017

	Ronald Breslow was born in Rahway, New Jersey in 1931. He received his undergraduate and graduate training at Harvard University, where he did his Ph.D. research with Professor R.B. Woodward. He then spent a year in Cambridge, England as a postdoctoral fellow with Lord Todd and came to Columbia University in 1956 as instructor in chemistry. He was the Samuel Latham Mitchill Professor of Chemistry at Columbia, one of twelve University Professors, and a former Chairman of the Department. Professor Breslow's research interests can be described generally as involving the design and synthesis of new molecules with interesting properties, and the study of these properties. Examples include the cyclopropenyl cation, the simplest aromatic system and the first aromatic compound prepared with other than six electrons in a ring. His work establishing the phenomenon of anti-aromaticity has involved the synthesis of novel molecules, as well as their study. Even in work on purely mechanistic questions, such as his discovery of the chemical mechanism used by thiamine (vitamin B-1) in biochemical reactions, the synthesis and study of novel molecules played an important role. Although he continued his interest in unusual conjugated systems, his major emphasis in later years was on the synthesis and study of molecules that imitate enzymatic reactions. This work has included the development of remote functionalization reactions and the development of artificial enzymes. He developed a new group of cytodifferentiating agents with potential use in cancer chemotherapy. He is the author of over 400 publications. Professor Breslow was a member of the National Academy of Sciences (Chairman of the Chemistry Division 1974-77), the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the European Academy of Science. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1980. He was on the editorial board of a number of scientific journals, and had held over 150 named and visiting professorships. His major scientific awards include the American Chemical Society Award in Pure Chemistry (1966), the Baekeland Medal (1969), the Harrison Howe Award (1974), the Remsen Prize (1977), the Richards Medal (1984), the Allan Day Award (1990) and the U.S. National Medal of Science (1991). He won the Welch Award in Chemistry in 2003 and the Willard Gibbs Award in 2004 and also received the Mark Van Doren Medal of Columbia University and the Columbia University Great Teacher Award. Dr. Breslow added the 2010 Perkin Medal and the 2014 American Institute of Chemists Gold Medal to his long list of awards. Ronald Breslow died October 25, 2017, at the age of 86.

57	Name:	Dr. Brian O'Brien
	Year Elected:	1953
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Subdivision:	106. Physics
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1898
	Death Date:	July 1, 1992

58	Name:	Percy Williams Bridgman
	Year Elected:	1916
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1882

59	Name:	Lyman J. Briggs
	Year Elected:	1935
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1874
	Death Date:	3/26/63

60	Name:	Dr. William F. Brinkman
	Institution:	United States Department of Energy
	Year Elected:	2002
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Subdivision:	103. Engineering
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1938

	William F. Brinkman received a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Missouri in 1965. He joined Bell Laboratories in 1966 after spending one year as an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Oxford University. In 1972, he became head of the Infrared Physics and Electronics Research Department, and in 1974 he became the director of the Chemical Physics Research Laboratory. He held the position of director of the Physical Research Laboratory from 1981 until moving to Sandia in 1984. He returned to Bell Laboratories in 1987 to become executive director of the Physics Research Division. In 1993 he became Physical Sciences Research Vice President, and in January 2000 became Vice President, Research. He retired from this position in September 2001. He then served as president of the American Physical Society and senior research associate in the Department of Physics at Princeton University until June 2009 when he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Director of the Office of Science in the United States Department of Energy. Overseeing the nation's research programs in fusion energy sciences and nuclear and high-energy physics, the Office is the country's single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences. He retired from the position in 2013. William Brinkman's personal research covered materials classes of great engineering significance such as metals, semiconductors, superconductors and liquid crystals. He contributed significantly in the understanding of correlated electron motion, electron-hole liquid formation, exotic superfluid states and defects in liquid crystals. His technical leadership for the development of Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) for high capacity communications systems and optical fiber fabrication has revolutionized long distance transmission. He has chaired many committees shaping the national policy for technology development and science. A contribution of singular importance is the 8 volume 1986 NRC "Brinkman Report" on the status of physics. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the American Physical Society. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2002.

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