Malcolm Roy Beasley (born January 4, 1940, in San Francisco) is an American physicist. He is professor emeritus of applied physics at

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 ...

. He is known for his research related to

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 ...

Early life and education

Beasley was born at

Stanford hospital Stanford University Medical Center is a teaching hospital which includes Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children's Health. It serves as a private hospital for the Stanford University School of Medicine. In 2022–23, it was ranked by the U ...

, moving to

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

with his parents, who were social scientists. He was a high school and college

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

player, earning All-Metropolitan honors at

Montgomery Blair High School Montgomery Blair High School (MBHS) is a State school, public Secondary school, high school in the Four Corners, Maryland, Four Corners neighborhood of Silver Spring, Maryland, United States. It is operated by Montgomery County Public Schools (M ...

Silver Spring, Maryland Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially Unincorporated area, unincorporated, it is an edge city with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 ...

, and playing for the

Cornell Big Red The Cornell Big Red is the informal name of the sports and other competitive teams that represent Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The university sponsors 37 varsity sports, and several intramural sports, intramural and club teams. Cornell ...

in 1958-59. At

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

, Beasley earned his

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

in engineering physics in 1962 and his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in 1967. His Ph.D. thesis ''Flux creep in hard superconductors'' was supervised by Watt W. Webb.

Academic career

Beasley joined the faculty of Harvard University in 1968 where he remained until accepting a position at Stanford in 1974. He was recruited to Stanford by Theodore Geballe, and after

Aharon Kapitulnik Aharon Kapitulnik (Hebrew: אהרון קפיטולניק; born 1953) is an Israeli-American experimental condensed matter physicist working at Stanford University. He is known primarily for his work on strongly correlated electron systems, low d ...

joined the applied physics department, the three Stanford superconductivity researchers became known as the "KGB Group." In 1991, Beasley 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 ...

. He was elected a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, 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 ...

in 1993. In 1998, Beasley was named dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford. In 2002, Beasley served as chairman of the

Jan Hendrik Schön Jan, JaN or JAN may refer to: Acronyms * Jackson, Mississippi (Amtrak station), US, Amtrak station code JAN * Jackson-Evers International Airport, Mississippi, US, IATA code * Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN), a Syrian militant group * Japanese Article Numb ...

commission, which determined that Schön fabricated much of his published research. In 2011, Beasley was elected to the Presidential line 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 ...

, becoming APS President in 2014.

References

External links

Stanford University Research Group
1940 births Living people Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the American Physical Society Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences faculty Stanford University Department of Physics faculty Cornell University College of Engineering alumni 20th-century American physicists 21st-century American physicists Presidents of the American Physical Society {{US-physicist-stub