Eric Allin Cornell (born December 19, 1961) is an American physicist who, along with Carl E. Wieman, was able to synthesize the first

Bose–Einstein condensate In condensed matter physics, a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter that is typically formed when a gas of bosons at very low Density, densities is cooled to temperatures very close to absolute zero#Relation with Bose–Einste ...

in 1995. For their efforts, Cornell, Wieman, and

Wolfgang Ketterle Wolfgang Ketterle (; born 21 October 1957) is a German physicist and professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His research has focused on experiments that trap and cool atoms to temperatures close to absolute zer ...

shared the

Nobel Prize in Physics The Nobel Prize in Physics () is an annual award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions to mankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the ...

in 2001.

Biography

Cornell was born in

Palo Alto Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, where his parents were completing graduate degrees at nearby

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. Two years later he moved to

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

, where his father was a professor of

civil engineering Civil engineering is a regulation and licensure in engineering, professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads ...

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

. Here he grew up with his younger brother and sister, with year-long stints in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

, and

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

, accompanying his father whilst on sabbatical. In Cambridge he attended

Cambridge Rindge and Latin School The Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, also known as "CRLS" or "Rindge", is a public high school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. It is a part of the Cambridge Public School District. In 1977, two separate schools, Rindge Technical Sc ...

. The year before his graduation he moved back to California with his mother and finished high school at

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

's Lowell High School, a local

magnet school In the U.S. education system, magnet schools are public schools with specialized courses or curricula. Normally, a student will attend an elementary school, and this also determines the middle school and high school they attend unless they mo ...

for academically talented students. After high school he enrolled at

, where he was to meet his future wife, Celeste Landry. As an undergraduate he earned money as an assistant in the various low-temperature physics groups on campus. He was doing well both in his courses and his jobs in the labs and seemed set for a career in physics. He however doubted whether he wished to pursue such a career, or rather a different one in literature or politics. Halfway through his undergraduate years he went to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

for nine months to volunteer teaching conversational English and to study Chinese. He returned to Stanford with the intent to study physics. He graduated with honors and distinction in 1985. For graduate school he returned to MIT. There he joined David Pritchard's group, which had a running experiment that tried to measure the mass of the

electron neutrino The electron neutrino () is an elementary particle which has zero electric charge and a spin of . Together with the electron, it forms the first generation of leptons, hence the name ''electron neutrino''. It was first hypothesized by Wolfga ...

from the

beta decay In nuclear physics, beta decay (β-decay) is a type of radioactive decay in which an atomic nucleus emits a beta particle (fast energetic electron or positron), transforming into an isobar of that nuclide. For example, beta decay of a neutron ...

tritium Tritium () or hydrogen-3 (symbol T or H) is a rare and radioactive isotope of hydrogen with a half-life of ~12.33 years. The tritium nucleus (t, sometimes called a ''triton'') contains one proton and two neutrons, whereas the nucleus of the ...

. Although he was unable to determine the mass of the neutrino, Cornell did obtain his PhD in 1990. After obtaining his doctorate he joined Carl Wieman at the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University o ...

as a postdoctoral researcher on a small

laser cooling Laser cooling includes several techniques where atoms, molecules, and small mechanical systems are cooled with laser light. The directed energy of lasers is often associated with heating materials, e.g. laser cutting, so it can be counterintuit ...

experiment. During his two years as a postdoc he came up with a plan to combine

and

evaporative cooling An evaporative cooler (also known as evaporative air conditioner, swamp cooler, swamp box, desert cooler and wet air cooler) is a device that cools air through the evaporation of water. Evaporative cooling differs from other air conditioning sy ...

in a magnetic trap to create a

(BEC). Based on his proposal he was offered a permanent position at JILA/

NIST The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical s ...

in Boulder. In 1995 Cornell and Wieman gave the University of Colorado's George Gamow Memorial Lecture. For synthesizing the first Bose–Einstein condensate in 1995, Cornell, Wieman, and

shared the

in 2001. In 1997, Deborah S. Jin joined Cornell's group at JILA, where she led the team that produced the

fermionic condensate A fermionic condensate (or Fermi–Dirac condensate) is a superfluid phase formed by fermionic particles at low temperatures. It is closely related to the Bose–Einstein condensate, a superfluid phase formed by bosonic atoms under similar con ...

in 2003. He is currently a professor at the

and a physicist (NIST fellow) at the

United States Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce (DOC) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for gathering data for business and governmental decision making, establishing industrial standards, catalyzing econ ...

National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into Outline of p ...

. His lab is located at JILA. He was awarded the

Lorentz Medal Lorentz Medal is a distinction awarded every four years by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. It was established in 1925 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the doctorate of Hendrik Lorentz. The medal is given for imp ...

in 1998 and is a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

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 ...

. He was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) 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 other ...

in 2005.

Awards and honors

Cornell received multiple awards including the

in 2001. * Ioannes Marcus Marci Medal for Molecular Spectroscopy, Ioannes Marcus Marci Spectroscopic Society, Czech Republic, 2012 * Fellow, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2005 * Nobel Prize in Physics, 2001 * Member, National Academy of Sciences, 2000 * Fellow, Optical Society of America, Elected 2000 * R. W. Wood Prize, Optical Society of America, 1999 * Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics, 1999 * Lorentz Medal, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1998 * Fellow, The American Physical Society, Elected 1997 * I. I. Rabi Prize in Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, American Physical Society, 1997 * King Faisal International Prize in Science, 1997 * National Science Foundation Alan T. Waterman Award, 1997 * Carl Zeiss Award, Ernst Abbe Fund, 1996 * Fritz London Prize in Low Temperature Physics, 1996 * Department of Commerce Gold Medal, 1996 * Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering, 1996 * Newcomb-Cleveland Prize, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1995–96 * George Gamow Memorial Lecture, 1995 *

Samuel Wesley Stratton Award The Samuel Wesley Stratton Award has been annually presented by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, then NBS) since 1962 for "an unusually significant research contribution to science or engineering that merits the acclaim o ...

, National Institute of Science and Technology, 1995

Personal life

Cornell married Celeste Landry in 1995 mere months before the BEC experiment succeeded. Their first daughter was born in 1996, and their second daughter in 1998. In October 2004, his left arm and shoulder were amputated in an attempt to stop the spread of

necrotizing fasciitis Necrotizing fasciitis (NF), also known as flesh-eating disease, is an infection that kills the body's soft tissue. It is a serious disease that begins and spreads quickly. Symptoms include red or purple or black skin, swelling, severe pain, fever ...

. He was discharged from the hospital in mid-December, having recovered from the infection, and returned to work part-time in April 2005. Cornell has run in the Bolder Boulder several times since moving to Boulder in 1990, most recently in 2022.

References

Bibliography

External links

Cornell Group webpage
at the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, the University of Colorado Denver, and the U ...

Bose–Einstein Condensate website
at the