Kenneth Reinhard Poeppelmeier (born 6 October 1949) is the Charles E. & Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry at

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

. Poeppelmeier completed his bachelor's degree in chemistry at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou or MU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Univers ...

in 1971. From 1971 to 1974 he taught chemistry at

Samoa College Samoa College is a secondary education, secondary school in Samoa officially opened in 1953. It is Mixed-sex education, co-educational and teaches from years 9 to 13. It is in Apia on the island of Upolu and is considered the main college in the co ...

as part of the

Peace Corps The Peace Corps is an Independent agency of the U.S. government, independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to communities in partner countries around the world. It was established in Marc ...

. After returning from

Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa and known until 1997 as Western Samoa, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania, in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu), two smaller, inhabited ...

, he enrolled at

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricult ...

and, in 1978, was awarded a doctorate for his work on reduced

scandium Scandium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Sc and atomic number 21. It is a silvery-white metallic d-block, d-block element. Historically, it has been classified as a rare-earth element, together with yttrium and the lantha ...

halide compounds completed under the direction of

John Corbett John Joseph Corbett Jr. (born May 9, 1961) is an American actor and country music singer. On television, he is best known for his roles as Chris Stevens on ''Northern Exposure'' (1990–1995), Aidan Shaw on ''Sex and the City'' (2000–2003), ...

. After graduation, he joined

Exxon Exxon Mobil Corporation ( ) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston. Founded as the largest direct successor of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, the modern company was form ...

Central Research and Development where he studied the synthesis and properties oxygen-deficient perovskites. In 1984, he joined

as professor of inorganic chemistry. In 1989, he co-lead the team that was awarded the Science and Technology Center for Superconductivity (STcS), one of the first research centers organized by the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

to provide science and engineering opportunities to address complex research problems that required the advantages of scale, skillsets, longer time duration, and equipment. The Center comprised researchers from

, the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

, the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

, and

Argonne National Laboratory Argonne National Laboratory is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Lemont, Illinois, Lemont, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1946, the laboratory is owned by the United Sta ...

. Poeppelmeier was the Centers Associate Director. .From 2010-2020, he held a joint appointment in the Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division at

and served as Deputy Division Director for Science. From 2012-2023, Poeppelmeier represented

on the Governors Board, a group established to operate and coordinate the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR), an Office of Science Innovation Hub centered at

. He was a core member of the Materials Discovery effort associated with the identifying multivalent-based energy storage systems. His work at Northwestern has focused on the role of materials synthesis, transport properties, and materials design in the isolation of new compounds with applications in

superconductivity Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in superconductors: materials where Electrical resistance and conductance, electrical resistance vanishes and Magnetic field, magnetic fields are expelled from the material. Unlike an ord ...

nonlinear optical Nonlinear optics (NLO) is the branch of optics that describes the behaviour of light in nonlinear media, that is, media in which the polarization density P responds non-linearly to the electric field E of the light. The non-linearity is typicall ...

materials,

catalysis Catalysis () is the increase in rate of a chemical reaction due to an added substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed by the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recycles quick ...

, and

energy storage Energy storage is the capture of energy produced at one time for use at a later time to reduce imbalances between energy demand and energy production. A device that stores energy is generally called an Accumulator (energy), accumulator or Batte ...

. From 1995-2015, he was the materials editor for the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

journal Inorganic Chemistry.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Poeppelmeier, Kenneth 1949 births Living people 20th-century American chemists ExxonMobil people Argonne National Laboratory people 21st-century American chemists University of Missouri alumni Northwestern University faculty Iowa State University alumni Scientists from Missouri