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Alan Jay Heeger
USINFO | 2013-11-20 11:24
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2000 Laureate
| Alan J. Heeger | |
| Born |
January 22, 1936 (age 77) Sioux City, Iowa, USA |
| Nationality | United States |
| Fields | Physics, Chemistry |
| Institutions |
University of Pennsylvania University of California, Santa Barbara |
| Alma mater |
University of Nebraska University of California, Berkeley |
| Doctoral advisor | Alan Portis |
| Notable awards |
Nobel Prize in Chemistry Balzan Prize ENI award |
| Spouse | Ruth (2 children) |
Alan Jay Heeger (born January 22, 1936) is an American physicist, academic and Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry.
Life and career
Heeger was born in Sioux City, Iowa, to a Jewish family. He earned a B.S. in physics and mathematics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1957, and a Ph.D in physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1961. From 1962 to 1982 he was on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. In 1982 he commenced his present appointment as a professor in the Physics Department and the Materials Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
His research has led to the formation of numerous start-up companies including Uniax, Konarka, and Sirigen, founded in 2003 by Guillermo C. Bazan, Patrick J. Dietzen, Brent S. Gaylord. Alan Heeger was a founder of Uniax, which was acquired by DuPont.
He won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2000 along with Alan G. MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa "for their discovery and development of conductive polymers;" They published their results on polyacetylene a conductive polymer in 1977.
He had won the Oliver E. Buckley Prize of the American Physical Society in 1983 and, in 1995, the Balzan Prize for Science of Non-Biological Materials.
His sons are the neuroscientist David Heeger and the immunologist Peter Heeger.
In October 2010, Heeger participated in the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Lunch with a Laureate program where middle and high school students engage in an informal conversation with a Nobel Prize-winning Scientist over a brown bag lunch. Heeger is also a member of the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Advisory Board. Heeger has been a judge of the STAGE International Script Competition three times (2006, 2007, 2010).
