Shirley Chiang is an American

microscopist Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view subjects too small to be seen with the naked eye (objects that are not within the resolution range of the normal eye). There are three well-known branches of microscopy: optical, el ...

focused on the high-resolution imaging of surfaces, including the use of

scanning tunneling microscopy A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a type of scanning probe microscope used for imaging surfaces at the atomic level. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, then at IBM Zürich, the Nobel Prize in ...

and low-energy electron microscopy, and known for capturing the first image showing the ring structure of

benzene Benzene is an Organic compound, organic chemical compound with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecular formula C6H6. The benzene molecule is composed of six carbon atoms joined in a planar hexagonal Ring (chemistry), ring with one hyd ...

molecules. She is a professor at the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

, in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and editor-in-chief of the

MDPI MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute) is a publisher of open-access scientific journals. It publishes over 390 peer-reviewed, open-access journals. MDPI is among the largest publishers in the world in terms of journal article o ...

journal ''Nanomaterials''.

Education and career

Chiang graduated from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1976, and earned her Ph.D. at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

in 1983. She became a researcher for

IBM Research IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American Multinational corporation, multinational information technology company. IBM Research is headquartered at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York ...

in their Almaden Research Center in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially the City of San José ( ; ), is a cultural, commercial, and political center within Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. With a city population of 997,368 and a metropolitan area population of 1.95 million, it is ...

from 1983 until 1994. It was at IBM, in 1988, that she captured the first image of individual benzene molecules, using a scanning tunneling microscope to view benzene attached in a single-molecule-thick layer to a

rhodium Rhodium is a chemical element; it has symbol Rh and atomic number 45. It is a very rare, silvery-white, hard, corrosion-resistant transition metal. It is a noble metal and a member of the platinum group. It has only one naturally occurring isot ...

crystal. In 1994, she took her present position at the University of California, Davis. She was department chair from 2003 to 2008, and has also served as a faculty assistant to the vice provost for academic affairs.

Recognition

Chiang was named a

Fellow of the American Physical Society The American Physical Society honors members with the designation ''Fellow'' for having made significant accomplishments to the field of physics. The following lists are divided chronologically by the year of designation. * List of fellows of the ...

(APS) in 1994, after a nomination from the APS Division of Chemical Physics, "for advances in real space imaging of surface structure by scanning tunneling and force microscopies, especially molecular identification, imaging of metals and alloys, and atomic-scale frictional forces". She became a fellow of the

American Vacuum Society AVS: Science and Technology of Materials, Interfaces, and Processing (formally the American Vacuum Society, Inc.) is a professional and scientific society founded in 1953 as a committee on vacuum technology. The AVS supports networking among its ...

in 2006, and a fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

in 2008. She was a 2001 winner of the UC Davis Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award.

References

External links

Home page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Chiang, Shirley Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American physicists American women physicists Microscopists Harvard University alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni University of California, Davis faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society 21st-century American women