Preceded by Jean-Lou Chameau Role Physics researcher | Name Thomas Rosenbaum | |
Full Name Thomas Felix Rosenbaum Born February 20, 1955 (age 69) ( 1955-02-20 ) Alma mater Harvard University
Princeton University Profession Physicist, Scientist, University administrator Education Princeton University, Harvard University Similar People Jean‑Lou Chameau, Robert Andrews Millikan, Amos G Throop | ||
Thomas Felix Rosenbaum (born February 20, 1955), American physicist, is the current president of the California Institute of Technology.
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His research focuses on the behavior of matter at temperatures near absolute zero where quantum mechanical effects are manifest. Rosenbaum recognized early the significance and ubiquity of quantum phase transitions—from metal–insulator transitions to magnetism to exotic superconductivity—and his work is recognized as putting quantum transitions on as solid a footing as that long available for classical transitions. He has both exploited and advanced methods in experimental low temperature physics, developing new techniques (hydrostatic pressure, stress, magnetometry, calorimetry) for high-resolution studies at milliKelvin temperatures, complementing laboratory dilution refrigerator approaches with synchrotron x-ray measurements in diamond anvil cells at cryogenic temperatures. He established the nature of the metal-insulator transition in doped semiconductors and correlated materials, and demonstrated macroscopic anisotropy of non-s-wave superconductivity in heavy fermion compounds. Rosenbaum’s experiments on magnets involve controllable tuning of quantum fluctuations in both ordered and disordered systems. He is interested in the macroscopic manifestations of quantum mechanics and harnessing disorder to craft a material’s electrical, magnetic, and optical response.
Education & Service
Rosenbaum received his bachelor's degree in physics with honors from Harvard University in 1977, and a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University in 1982. He conducted research at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ and at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY before he joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1983. Since January 2007, Rosenbaum has served as the Provost of the University of Chicago. In addition to his responsibilities for academic and research programs across the University, Rosenbaum serves on the Board of Governors for Argonne National Laboratory. He directed the University's Materials Research Laboratory from 1991 to 1994, the University's James Franck Institute, an interdisciplinary research unit, from 1995 to 2001, and served as Vice President for Research and for Argonne National Laboratory from 2002 to 2006. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the Santa Fe Institute Science Board, a Trustee of the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), and a Trustee of the University of Chicago Medical Center. Rosenbaum was announced as the ninth President of The California Institute of Technology on the morning of October 24, 2013 and is expected to take office at Caltech on or about July 1, 2014. Rosenbaum was formally inaugurated into the office on October 24, 2014.
Honors
His honors include an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, an NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, and the William McMillan Award for “outstanding contributions to condensed matter physics.” Rosenbaum is an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.