{"id":293,"date":"2024-05-16T07:55:49","date_gmt":"2024-05-16T07:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/sawberries\/2024\/05\/16\/john-joannopoulos-receives-killian-award-0515\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T07:55:49","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T07:55:49","slug":"john-joannopoulos-receives-killian-award-0515","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/sawberries\/2024\/05\/16\/john-joannopoulos-receives-killian-award-0515\/","title":{"rendered":"John Joannopoulos receives 2024-2025 Killian Award"},"content":{"rendered":"
John Joannopoulos, an innovator and mentor in the fields of theoretical condensed matter physics and nanophotonics, has been named the recipient of the 2024-2025 James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award.<\/p>\n
Joannopoulos is the Francis Wright Davis Professor of Physics and director of MIT\u2019s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies. He has been a member of the MIT faculty for 50 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cProfessor Joannopoulos\u2019s profound and lasting impact on the field of theoretical condensed matter physics finds its roots in his pioneering work in harnessing ab initio physics to elucidate the behavior of materials at the atomic level,\u201d states the award citation, which was announced at today\u2019s faculty meeting by Roger White, chair of the Killian Award Selection Committee and professor of philosophy at MIT. \u201cHis seminal research in the development of photonic crystals has revolutionized understanding of light-matter interactions, laying the groundwork for transformative advancements in diverse fields ranging from telecommunications to biomedical engineering.\u201d<\/p>\n
The award also honors Joannopoulos\u2019 service as a \u201clegendary mentor to generations of students, inspiring them to achieve excellence in science while at the same time facilitating the practical benefit to society through entrepreneurship.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Killian Award was established in 1971 to recognize outstanding professional contributions by MIT faculty members. It is the highest honor that the faculty can give to one of its members.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to tell you, it was a complete and utter surprise,\u201d Joannopoulos told MIT News<\/em> shortly after he received word of the award. \u201cI didn\u2019t expect it at all, and was extremely flattered, honored, and moved by it, frankly.\u201d<\/p>\n Joannopoulous has spent his entire professional career at MIT. He came to the Institute in 1974, directly after receiving his PhD in physics at the University of California at Berkeley, where he also earned his bachelor\u2019s degree. Starting out as an assistant professor in MIT\u2019s Department of Physics, he quickly set up a research program focused on theoretical condensed matter physics.<\/p>\n Over the first half of his MIT career, Joannopoulos worked to elucidate the fundamental nature of the electronic, vibrational, and optical structure of crystalline and amorphous bulk solids, their surfaces, interfaces, and defects. He and his students developed\u00a0numerous theoretical methods to enable tractable and accurate calculations of these complex systems.<\/p>\n In the 1990s, his work with microscopic material systems expanded to a new class of materials, called photonic crystals \u2014 materials that could be engineered at the micro- and nanoscale to manipulate light in ways that impart surprising and exotic optical qualities to the material as a whole.<\/p>\n \u201cI saw that you could create photonic crystals with defects that can affect the properties of photons, in much the same way that defects in a semiconductor affect the properties of electrons,\u201d Joannopoulos says. \u201cSo I started working in this area to try and explore what anomalous light phenomena can we discover using this approach?\u201d<\/p>\n