Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

History professor wins Guggenheim Fellowship for work on UI physicist

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – University of Illinois history professor Lillian Hoddeson has been selected to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship, an annual award that recognizes outstanding accomplishments and future potential for achievement.

Hoddeson was nominated for her work chronicling the life and science of physicist John Bardeen, a two-time Nobel Prize winner and UI professor of physics and of electrical engineering from 1951 until his death in 1991. Bardeen won his first Nobel Prize in 1956 for the invention of the transistor – a fundamental component of many products in the information age – and his second in 1972 for the theory of superconductivity.

“While [the superconductivity theory] doesn’t have the same ramifications for technology,” Hoddeson said, “in the world of physics it is an even greater discovery.”

Despite his monumental accomplishments, Bardeen is not as well known as other scientists.

“I began to wonder why no one had ever heard of John Bardeen,” Hoddeson said. “What I’ve decided is that he doesn’t fit the popular image of a genius. He wasn’t interested in appearing anything but ordinary.”

Hoddeson’s book, which she is co-writing with UI graduate student Vicki Daitch, is tentatively titled “True Genius: The Life and Science of John Bardeen.”

Although trained as a physicist, Hoddeson, who also is a senior research physicist at the UI, considers herself a “historian of science.” She also is a historian for the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill.

Begun in 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has awarded more than $192 million to nearly 15,000 people for their exceptional work. From the more than 2,900 applicants this year, 182 artists, scholars and scientists were chosen to receive awards totaling $6,345,000.

Read Next

Life sciences Portrait of the research team posing together.

Minecraft players can now explore whole cells and their contents

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Scientists have translated nanoscale experimental and computational data into precise 3D representations of bacteria, yeast and human epithelial, breast and breast cancer cells in Minecraft, a video game that allows players to explore, build and manipulate structures in three dimensions. The innovation will allow researchers and students of all ages to navigate […]

Arts Photo of seven dancers onstage wearing blue tops and orange or yellow flowing skirts. The backdrop is a Persian design.

February Dance includes works experimenting with live music, technology and a ‘sneaker ballet’

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The dance department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will present February Dance 2025: Fast Forward this week at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. February Dance will be one of the first performances in the newly renovated Colwell Playhouse Theatre since its reopening. The performances are Jan. 30-Feb. 1. Dance professor […]

Honors portraits of four Illinois researchers

Four Illinois researchers receive Presidential Early Career Award

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Four researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign were named recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on young professionals at the outset of their independent research careers. The winners this year are health and kinesiology professor Marni Boppart, physics professor Barry Bradlyn, chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Ying […]

Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

507 E. Green St
MC-426
Champaign, IL 61820

Email: stratcom@illinois.edu

Phone (217) 333-5010