Harry Eugene Stanley (born March 28, 1941) is an American
physicist and University
Professor at
Boston University. He has made seminal contributions to
statistical physics and is one of the pioneers of interdisciplinary science. His current research focuses on understanding the anomalous behavior of liquid water, but he had made fundamental contributions to complex systems, such as quantifying correlations among the constituents of the
Alzheimer
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As t ...
brain, and quantifying fluctuations in noncoding and coding
DNA sequences, interbeat intervals of the healthy and diseased heart. He is one of the founding fathers of
econophysics.
Education
Stanley obtained his B.A. in physics at
Wesleyan University in 1962.
He performed biological physics research with
Max Delbrück in 1963 and was awarded a
Ph.D. in physics from
Harvard University in 1967.
Stanley was a Miller Fellow at
University of California, Berkeley with
Charles Kittel, where he wrote an Oxford monograph
''Introduction to Phase Transitions and Critical Phenomena'' which won the
Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Book of 1971.
Academic career
Stanley was appointed Assistant Professor of Physics at
MIT in 1969 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1971. He was appointed
Hermann von Helmholtz Associate Professor in 1973, in recognition of his interdepartmental teaching and research with the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology. In 1976, Stanley joined Boston University as Professor of Physics, and Associate Professor of Physiology (in the School of Medicine). In 1978 and 1979, he was promoted to Professor of Physiology and University Professor, respectively. Since 2007 he holds joint appointments with the Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering Departments. In 2011, he was made William F. Warren Distinguished Professor. In the spring of 2013, he held the Lorentz Professorship at the University of Leiden.
Research and achievements
Stanley had fundamental contributions to several topics in
statistical physics, such as the theory of
phase transitions, percolation, disordered systems, aggregation phenomena,
polymers, econophysics and biological physics. His early work introduced the n-vector model of
magnetism and its exact solution in the limit nà infinity, topics that are now part of standard statistical physics textbooks.
His seminal work on liquid water started with a percolation model he developed with Texeira to explain the experimentally observed anticorrelations in entropy and volume
2O
and D2O at Low Temperatures: Tests of a Percolation Model” J. Chem. Phys. 73, 3404–3422 (1980)">. E. Stanley and J. Teixeira, “Interpretation of The Unusual Behavior of H2O
and D2O at Low Temperatures: Tests of a Percolation Model” J. Chem. Phys. 73, 3404–3422 (1980) In 1992 he developed the
liquid-liquid critical point hypothesis, that offered a quantitative understanding of water’s anomalies, applying to all liquids with tetrahedral symmetry (such as silicon and silica). Direct experimental proof for his proposal was obtained by recent experiments in Tsukuba, MIT, and Stanford.
Stanley coined the term ‘econophysics’ in 1994 to denote the field of physics dealing with economic phenomena. His group has found empirical laws governing economic fluctuations, and proposed statistical mechanics models to explain their origins.
The ISI Web of Science, lists 76,778 citations to Stanley's work (excluding 33 books). Using the Hirsch ''H'' Index metric for publication impact
NAS 102, 16569 (2005) Stanley has authored 129 papers with a citation count equal to or greater than 129, so ''H'' = 129. Google Scholar lists over 200,000 citations, with ''H'' = 201.
Stanley is committed to education at all levels, from high school to graduate studies. He has served as thesis advisor to 114 Ph.D. students and has collaborated with 211 postdoctoral fellows and visiting faculty. He is also active in worldwide efforts for achieving gender balance in the physical sciences.
Honors and awards
Stanley has been elected to the
U.S. National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Natio ...
(2004),
the
Brazilian Academy of Sciences. He is an Honorary Member of the
Hungarian Physical Society. He is currently
Honorary Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies,
University of Pavia (
Pavia,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
), and at
Eötvös Loránd University (
Budapest,
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...
). Stanley awarded the 2004
APS Nicholson Medal for Humanitarian Service, "''For his extraordinary contributions to human rights, for his initiatives on behalf of female physicists, and for his caring and supportive relationship with those who have worked in his laboratory.''"
For his contributions to phase transitions Stanley received the
2004
Boltzmann Medal, awarded by
International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), and the
American Physical Society 2008
Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize.
He was awarded the Teresiana Medal in Complex Systems Research
given by the University of Pavia. He also received the Distinguished
Teaching Scholar Director's Award from the
National Science Foundation, the Nicholson Medal for Human Outreach from the
American Physical Society, a
Guggenheim Fellowship (1979),
the David Turnbull Prize from the
Materials Research Society (1998),
a BP Venture Research Award, the Floyd K. Richtmyer Memorial Lectureship Award (1997),
the Memory Ride Award for Alzheimer Research,
and the Massachusetts Professor of the Year
awarded by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
Stanley has received nine Doctorates Honoris Causa, from
Bar-Ilan University Ramat Gan, (
Israel),
Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest).
University of Liège
The University of Liège (french: Université de Liège), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French. As of 2020, ULiège is ranked in the ...
(
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...
),
University of Dortmund,
University of Wroclaw,
Northwestern University,
University of Messina
The University of Messina ( it, Università degli Studi di Messina; Latin: ''Studiorum Universitas Messanae''), known colloquially as UniME, is a state university located in Messina, Sicily, Italy. Founded in 1548 by Pope Paul III, it was the w ...
,
University of Leicester, and the
IMT Institute for Advanced Studies Lucca.
See also
*
List of members of the National Academy of Sciences (Applied physical sciences)
Notes
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Stanley, H. Eugene
1941 births
Living people
21st-century American physicists
Boston University faculty
Harvard University alumni
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Harvard University faculty
Wesleyan University alumni
Probability theorists
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Fellows of the American Physical Society
Network scientists
Statistical physicists