Merrill Brian Maple (born November 20, 1939) is an American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

. He is a Distinguished Professor of Physics and holds the

Bernd T. Matthias Bernd Theodor Matthias (June 8, 1918 – October 27, 1980) was a German-born American physicist credited with discoveries of hundreds of elements and alloys with superconducting properties. He was said to have discovered more elements and compoun ...

Chair in the Physics Department at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

, and conducts research at the university's Center for Advanced Nanoscience. He has also served as the director of UCSD's Institute for Pure and Applied Physical Sciences (1995-2009) and its Center for Interface and Materials Science (1990-2010). His primary research interest is

condensed matter physics Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid phases which arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms. More generally, the sub ...

, involving phenomena like magnetism and superconductivity. He has authored or co-authored more than 900 scientific publications and five patents in correlated electron physics, high pressure physics, nano physics, and surface science.

Education and career

Maple was born November 20, 1939 in

Chula Vista, California Chula Vista (; ) is the second-largest city in the San Diego metropolitan area, the Largest cities in Southern California, seventh largest city in Southern California, the List of largest California cities by population, fifteenth largest city ...

. He received BA and BS degrees in 1963 from San Diego State College (now San Diego State University). He received an MS in 1965 and a PhD in physics from UCSD in 1969, working under

and has been on the UCSD faculty since 1973. He became an associate professor in 1977, was named a full professor in 1981 and a Distinguished Professor in 2005. He has held the Bernd T. Matthias endowed chair since 1990. From 2004 through 2010 he also served as chair of the physics department. He has been granted a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

(1984) and a

Humboldt Research Award The Humboldt Prize, the Humboldt-Forschungspreis in German, also known as the Humboldt Research Award, is an award given by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany to internationally renowned scientists and scholars who work outside of G ...

(1998). In addition to his work at UCSD he was a Bernd T. Matthias Scholar in the Center for Materials Science at

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...

(1993). He was granted an Honorary Professorship at the Trzebiatowski Institute for Low Temperature and Structure Research of the

Polish Academy of Sciences The Polish Academy of Sciences ( pl, Polska Akademia Nauk, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society of ...

(2006) and a Science Lectureship Award at

Chiba University is a national university in the city of Chiba, Japan. It offers Doctoral degrees in education as part of a coalition with Tokyo Gakugei University, Saitama University, and Yokohama National University. The university was formed in 1949 from exist ...

in Tokyo (2010). He organized and presided over a famous "Special Session on Recent Developments in High T_c Superconductivity", nicknamed "the

Woodstock of physics The term "Woodstock of physics" is often used by physicists to refer to the marathon session of the American Physical Society’s meeting on March 18, 1987, which featured 51 presentations of recent discoveries in the science of high-temperature sup ...

", during the March 1987 meeting of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

. The session, which was added to the agenda at the last minute, dealt with newly discovered high temperature superconductors. It featured 51 speakers, limited to 5–10 minutes per speaker, and lasted until 3:15 AM. More than 1,800 scientists crammed into the lecture room and another 2,000 watched on television. Maple also presided over a 20th-anniversary recognition and review of the famous session, held at the American Physical Society's 2007 meeting in Denver.

Recognition

* In 1987 he was named Distinguished Alumnus of the Year by UCSD. * In 1988 he was named Distinguished Alumnus of the Year by SDSU College of Sciences. * In 1996 he received the

David Adler Lectureship Award in the Field of Materials Physics The David Adler Lectureship Award in the Field of Materials Physics is a prize that has been awarded annually by the American Physical Society since 1988. The recipient is chosen for "an outstanding contributor to the field of materials physics, ...

from the American Physical Society. * In 2000 he received the

James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials The James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials is a prize that has been awarded annually by the American Physical Society since 1975, but was only given that name following its endowment by IBM in 1999. Prior to that it was known as the Internation ...

from the American Physical Society for "the synthesis of novel d and f electron materials and for the study of their physics." * In 2004 he was elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

. * Other awards include the

Bernd T. Matthias Prize The Bernd Theodor Matthias Prize is a science award for innovative contributions to the material aspects of superconductivity. Summary Bernd Theodor Matthias Prize is presented since 1989 by the Bell Labs, created by friends and colleagues of prof. ...

for Superconducting Materials, the Frank H. Spedding Award for Research on Rare Earths, and the David Adler Lectureship Award (1996). * He is a Fellow of the

and the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Maple, M. Brian 20th-century American physicists 21st-century American physicists San Diego State University alumni University of California, San Diego alumni University of California, San Diego faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Physical Society People from San Diego People from Chula Vista, California 1939 births Living people