135-TV-00
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RENOWNED PHYSICIST WILSON HO JOINS UC IRVINE FACULTY AS A DONALD BREN PROFESSOR
Irvine, Calif., Oct. 5, 2000 -- Cornell University physicist Wilson Ho, whose design and use of a revolutionary microscope enables him to probe individual molecules and atoms to discover their properties, has joined the UC Irvine faculty as the Donald Bren Professor of Physics & Astronomy and Chemistry.
Ho, a specialist in the emerging field of nanoscience -- where research conducted at the atomic level is leading to innovative microscopic technologies aiding developments in medicine and high-tech systems -- will hold a joint appointment in the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Physics & Astronomy in UCI's School of Physical Sciences. In addition to teaching, he will collaborate with researchers in UCI's Institute of Surface and Interface Science, an interdisciplinary research unit exploring the properties of materials at the atomic and molecular level.
"Wilson Ho is an exceptional scientist whose research at Cornell significantly advanced research in this increasingly important scientific field," said UCI Chancellor Ralph J. Cicerone. "He will be instrumental in increasing the profile of materials research at UCI, and with significant support from the Bren Professors Endowment, his appointment adds to UCI's strength as a leading research university."
Ho is UCI's fourth Donald Bren Professor. The others are noted evolutionary biologist Francisco J. Ayala; atmospheric chemist F. Sherwood Rowland, a 1995 Nobel Laureate in chemistry; and Thomas J. Carew, a leading researcher in the neurobiological field of learning and memory. The Bren Professors Endowment was established in 1988 with a gift from Donald Bren, chairman of The Irvine Company, to help UCI attract and retain the nation's foremost scholars.
"It's exciting to be part of the fantastic growth in scientific research at UCI," Ho said. "I am honored to be named a Bren Professor, due to the distinction of those faculty members who also hold that title. In collaboration with my colleagues in the physical sciences and engineering, I hope to make significant contributions to UCI's nanoscience research."
Ho's research focuses on the area of condensed matter physics and chemistry commonly referred to as nanoscience, which provides information on atoms and molecules and their interactions with each other in forming more complex structures. Discoveries in this research area have led to new developments in an emerging area called nanotechnology, in which nanomaterials are employed to create devices for high-tech, biomedical and chemical uses.
Over the past five years, Ho's fundamental findings on the activity of individual atoms and molecules -- such as their diffusion, rotation, vibration, energy distribution and the forces that bind them together -- have significantly advanced research in his field, and he is considered among the leading experts.
Ho can isolate atoms and molecules on the surfaces of materials such as metals and silicon in order to study them. He also designs and constructs scanning tunneling microscopes, which features a needle with a tip a thousand times thinner than a human hair. With this needle, Ho manipulates and probes inside atoms and molecules to learn of their properties. In recent projects, Ho has used the microscope to arrange individual atoms and molecules to form specific new molecules.
After receiving his doctorate in physics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1979, Ho spent one year at the AT&T Bell Laboratories before joining the faculty of Cornell University in 1980. The author of more than 190 articles published in leading scientific journals, he is a fellow of the American Physical Society and received the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award for Senior U.S. Scientists in 1997.
Ho is the first appointment in a School of Physical Sciences initiative to add five faculty members who will contribute to ongoing research on the physics and chemistry of materials.
"As the first appointment for this important initiative, Wilson will help lead our efforts to establish important ties between physics and chemistry research at UCI," said Ronald J. Stern, dean of the School of Physical Sciences. "His excellence as a teacher also will attract an increasing number of top graduate and post-doctoral students in these two fields. For these reasons, I can't imagine anyone better to join our faculty."
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Contact:Tom Vasich(949) 824-6455[email protected]
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