Nadya Mason is the

Rosalyn Sussman Yalow Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (July 19, 1921 – May 30, 2011) was an American medical physicist, and a co-winner of the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (together with Roger Guillemin and Andrew Schally) for development of the radioimmunoassay ...

Professor of Physics at the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

. As a condensed matter experimentalist, she works on the quantum limits of low-dimensional systems. Mason is the Director of the Illinois Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (I-MRSEC) and, since September 1 of 2022, the Director of the

Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology is a unit of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign dedicated to interdisciplinary research. A gift from scientist, businessman, and philanthropist Arnold O. Beckman (1900–2004) an ...

. She is the first woman and woman of color to work as the director at the institute. In 2021, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences., entry in member directory:

Personal life

Mason was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, and lived in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

for the first six years of her life. She grew up in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

before moving to

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

. In 1986 she trained as a gymnast with

Bela Karolyi Bela may refer to: Places Asia *Bela Pratapgarh, a town in Pratapgarh District, Uttar Pradesh, India *Bela, a small village near Bhandara, Maharashtra, India *Bela, another name for the biblical city Zoara * Bela, Dang, in Nepal * Bela, Janakpur, ...

and competed as a member of the U.S. National Team. She currently lives in Urbana, IL, where she is a faculty member at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She has two daughters.

Education

Mason always enjoyed math and science, and completed several science focused internships during her education, including a fellowship in condensed matter at Bell Laboratories. She completed a bachelor's degree at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1995. In 2001 she earned a PhD under

Aharon Kapitulnik Aharon Kapitulnik (born 1953) is an Israeli-American experimental condensed matter physicist working at Stanford University. He is known primarily for his work on strongly correlated electron systems, low dimensional electronic systems, unconven ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Research

Mason returned to Harvard as a MRSEC Postdoctoral Fellow in 2001, where she was elected junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows. In 2005, Mason joined the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Her research focuses on carbon nanotubes, graphene, nanostructured semiconductors and topological insulators. In these systems she concentrates on electron interactions, and how to apply her understanding to quantum computing. She has discussed the limit on the size of electronics and impact of novel nanomaterials for the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign YouTube channel. In 2006 she demonstrated the non-equilibrium

Kondo effect In physics, the Kondo effect describes the scattering of conduction electrons in a metal due to magnetic impurities, resulting in a characteristic change i.e. a minimum in electrical resistivity with temperature. The cause of the effect was fir ...

and in 2011 observed individual superconducting bound states in graphene-based systems. In 2014 Mason was appointed a John Bardeen Faculty Scholar in Physics at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. In 2016 she was appointed to full Professor.

Service and outreach

Nadya Mason is a General Councillor for the American Physical Society. She is Chair of the APS Committee on Minorities and was featured by the

National Society of Black Physicists The National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP), established in the United States in 1977, is a non-profit professional organization with the goal to promote the professional well-being of African Diaspora physicists and physics students within the ...

for

Black History Month Black History Month is an annual observance originating in the United States, where it is also known as African-American History Month. It has received official recognition from governments in the United States and Canada, and more recently ...

in 2017. In November 2019, Mason gave a

TED talk TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

called, "How to spark your creativity, scientifically."

Honors and awards

2021 - Elected to 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 ...

and to the US National Academy of Sciences 2020 - Edward Bouchet Award,

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 ...

2018 - Fellow, American Physical Society 2013 - Dean's Award for Excellence in Research,

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...

2012 -

Maria Goeppert Mayer Award The Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award is an annual prize presented by the American Physical Society in recognition of an outstanding contribution to physics research by a woman. It recognizes and enhances outstanding achievements by women physicists in ...

2009 - Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award

Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision Awards The Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision Awards honor exceptional technical women. Three awards are presented by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology each year, recognizing women in the categories of Innovation, Leadership, and Socia ...

2008 - Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellow 2008 - Diverse Magazine "Emerging Scholar" 2007 -

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

CAREER award

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mason, Nadya Living people American women physicists Women materials scientists and engineers Superconductivity scientists and engineers Harvard University alumni Stanford University alumni U.S. women's national team gymnasts Year of birth missing (living people) University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 21st-century American women Fellows of the American Physical Society