Vice Provost for Research Dawn Bonnell is pleased to announce the reappointment of Professor Arjun Yodh as Director of the Laboratory on the Structure of Matter (LRSM) for a six-year term ending June 30, 2020.
Professor Yodh is James M. Skinner Professor of Science in the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the School of Arts and Sciences. He has taught at Penn since 1988, following a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at AT&T Bell Laboratories. A fellow of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America, he has published more than 270 papers and has been a Sloan Fellow, a NSF Presidential Young Investigator, and an ONR Young Investigator, among other honors. He received his PhD (1986) and MS (1982) in Physics from Harvard University and BSc (1981) from the College of Engineering at Cornell University.
In his first term as Director of the LRSM, Prof. Yodh led the highly successful renewal of the $22 million National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) award under extremely competitive conditions. Penn's MRSEC award was the largest one nationwide. He also devoted significant attention to building a pipeline for future leaders in science and engineering. To this end, the LRSM has developed numerous educational outreach programs for students in local K-12 schools, for undergraduates at colleges and universities throughout the region, and for the general public. These programs enrich their knowledge and appreciation of materials research and couple the LRSM to industry, government, and the local community.
The LRSM was established in 1960 as one of the nations first interdisciplinary materials research centers and, for more than fifty years, has been the center for materials research at Penn. With well over 50 active members, it facilitates collaborations among faculty from different departments and Schools and promotes links to partners across industry, government, academe, and society at large.
Congratulations!