John D. Joannopoulos (born 1947) is an American physicist, focused in condensed matter theory. He is currently the Francis Wright Davis Professor of Physics at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
, an Elected Member of the
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 Nati ...
(NAS), an Elected Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
(AAA&S), and an Elected Fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...
(AAAS) and
American Physical Society
The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...
(APS).
Joannopoulos was born in New York City to
Greek parents. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. Most recently, in 2015, the
Optical Society of America (OSA) awarded him the
Max Born Award
The Max Born Award is given by the Optical Society (formerly the Optical Society of America) for "outstanding contributions to physical optics", and is named after Max Born.
Recipients
SourceThe Optical Society
* 2022 Yuri Kivshar
* 2021 Anne L ...
and the APS awarded him the
Aneesur Rahman
Aneesur Rahman (24 August 1927 – 6 June 1987) pioneered the application of computational methods to physical systems. His 1964 paper on liquid argon studied a system of 864 argon atoms on a CDC 3600 computer, using a Lennard-Jones potential ...
Prize for Computational Physics, both significant awards.
Joannopoulos is also the director of the
Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies. He first gained that position in 2006.
Joannopoulos has been on the MIT faculty since 1974. He holds his BA and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, the latter received in 1974.
Joannopoulos has helped set the theoretical foundations of key computational techniques for realistic and microscopic studies of complex materials systems, including the electronic, vibrational, and optical structure of crystalline and amorphous solids, their surfaces, interfaces, and defects; localization in disordered systems; and the first ab-inito studies of phase transitions and critical phenomena. In the early nineties, he also helped spawn the development of a new class of materials, Photonic Crystals, that provide new mechanisms to control the flow of light and have revolutionized the fields of optical and lightwave physics.
See also
*
Leslie Kolodziejski, fellow MIT physicist and collaborator of Joannopoulos'
References
1947 births
Living people
Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Fellows of the American Physical Society
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty
21st-century American physicists
American people of Greek descent
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Computational physicists
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Optical physicists
{{US-physicist-stub