Ralph G. Nuzzo
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Primary Section: 14, Chemistry Membership Type:
Member
(elected 2021)
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Biosketch
Ralph Nuzzo is a chemist noted for his work on the synthesis and characterization of materials, methods of fabrication, and the chemistry of materials surfaces and interfaces. He is the G. L. Clark Professor of Analytical Chemistry and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he joined the faculty in 1991, and an affiliated Professor of Materials Chemistry at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm Sweden. Nuzzo was born in Paterson, New Jersey and grew up in the town of Hawthorne. He received an AB degree in Chemistry from Rutgers College and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from MIT. He was previously a Member of the Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories, where he was named a Distinguished Member of the Staff in Research. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, the American Vacuum Society, and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Research Interests
Ralph Nuzzo’s research has followed a long-standing interest in developing new microscopic understandings of the macroscopic properties of surfaces and interfaces particularly those involving organic materials such as polymers and other soft-matter systems, devices for energy storage and conversion, and catalysts. Molecular self-assembly processes remain an area of special interest in his work along with their exploitation in studies of biological interfaces, nanomaterials, molecular sensing, electronics, and nanoscale fabrication. Advanced applications in the latter areas include: (a) new materials for printed electronics that use functional single-crystalline semiconductors and photonic materials in micro/nanostructured forms with applications in photovoltaics and optoelectronics; (b) additive, assembly-based methods of 3D fabrication with applications spanning bioanalytical chemistry, tissue engineering, sensing, optics, and electronics; and (c) devices that enable new capabilities for energy transduction and storage.
