Laura Greene (physicist)

Biography

As a child Laura Greene always had an intense curiosity about the working of the natural things around her and took a liking of the sciences. But, as a teen growing up in a culturally vibrant and diverse neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, she was also passionately attracted to music, especially folk music often singing and playing guitar at coffee houses and parties. Music remains an important constant in her life, she enjoys performing and is a regular participant in the American Physical Society (APS) March Meeting “Physics Songs” symposia. She is the mother of two grown up sons and is married to the noted British born, pianist and conductor Ian Hobson.

Laura Greene has held numerous professional positions at institutions all over the world. However, since 1992 she has been a permanent member of the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). At UIUC she holds the Swanlund endowed chair professor of physics, Center for Advanced Study professor of physics and Co-Associate Director, Center for Emergent Superconductivity (CES) Energy Frontier Research, Department of Physics, Materials Research laboratory (MRL), center for Nanoscale Science & Technology, UIUC, IL 61801-3080, USA.

Education, career and major professional contributions

Laura Greene studied physics as an undergraduate at Ohio State University and was awarded a cum laude BS, (1974) degree and Master’s (MS) in 1978. For higher education she joined Cornell University. At Cornell, first she was awarded a MS in experimental physics (1980) and then in (1984) she completed a PhD degree in condensed matter physics.

With her PhD she joined the fabled AT&T Bell Labs in Murray Hills in New Jersey (NJ) and later Bellcore, Red Bank also in NJ. The first ever evidence of, high critical temperature (high-Tc) superconductivity was reported (1986) by Bednoz and Muller, two researchers at the IBM’s research laboratory in Zurich, Switzerland. Within months, the IBM report was followed up with discoveries of far higher temperature superconductors from all over the world and publicized by professional events like the Woodstock of physics in the March meetings of the American Physical Society in 1987 & 1988 the first one was in New York city and the next in New Orleans, Louisiana. Greene and colleagues then still at AT&T were amongst the first groups to make a number of key contributions. Especially, the remarkable sensitivity of the superconducting transition, in the ‘123- materials’, to the exact amount of oxygen present, as well as the interdependence of atomic crystal structure and chemical composition with superconductivity. They reported these results in the first couple of conferences such as the one in Anaheim, California in the spring, 1987 meeting of the Materials Research Society (MRS) and the Berkeley meeting later in summer that same year. The Anaheim meeting was attended by Karl Alexander Muller the original co-discoverer of high-Tc and Nobel Prize (1987) winner for the discovery of high temperature superconductivity. Greene’s pioneering contribution was recognized in the first book on this subject, “Copper-oxide Superconductors” and in other highly cited research articles. She was also a panelist at the Woodstock-II.

Since the early days Greene has continued research on unconventional or novel superconducting materials; especially by Andreev reflection (PCAR) spectroscopy, demonstration of Andreev bound states and a wide range of symmetry breaking phenomena, including time-reversal symmetry breaking. Her recent work include, quantum mechanics on a macroscopic level, strongly correlated materials, PCAR experiments in Heavy fermion superconductor systems, and others.

Professionally at UIUC Laura Greene has been influenced by John Bardeen the only double Nobel Laureate in physics and Anthony Leggett another physics Nobelist; she has worked with many other scientists including B. Batlogg, Malcolm R. Beasley, R. A. Buhrman, David Ceperley, Timir Datta, Mildred Dresselhaus, Robert C. Dynes, A. J. Epstein, Theodore H. Geballe, Nigel Goldenfeld, David C. Larbalestier, W. E. Moerner, T.P. Orlando, David B. Tanner, J. M. Tarascon, T. Timusk, Dale Van Harlingen and others.

Outreach and societal awareness

Laura Greene is committed to equal rights for women and minorities in education and in the work place, particularly when it comes to the hard sciences and the engineering professions; she actively promotes awareness and sensitivity towards people who face difficult health challenges. She is a Co-founder of the Forum on Outreach and Engaging the Public (FOEP), and a member of Committee on Informing the Public, both parts of the American Physical Society. Laura Greene was on ‘BOOST/Grantwriting/Indonesia Advisory Board’; part of COACH International, for the Kavli Frontiers of Science Indonesia Meeting, Bali, Indonesia and she has served on the Argonne Education and Outreach Council for the Division of Educational Programs, Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne-U/Chicago-LLC).

Recent outreach and public service

Selected awards and honors