CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - University of Illinois professors Nigel Goldenfeld and Martin Gruebele are among 229 new members named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The academy, founded in 1780, is one of the longest-standing honorary societies in the nation. Fellowship honors outstanding leadership and scholarship in a variety of fields. Members join the ranks of Albert Einstein, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and many others.
Goldenfeld, the Swanlund Endowed Chair and professor of physics, is an esteemed condensed matter physicist who has expanded his interests to biophysics in recent years. He focuses on two main areas of theory: dynamics and pattern formation, or how patterns evolve in time, and emergent states of matter, from superconductivity to the emergence of life. Goldenfeld received his doctorate in physics in 1982 from the University of Cambridge, England. He joined the faculty at the U. of I. in 1985.
Gruebele, the James R. Eiszner Endowed Chair in Chemistry and professor of physics, earned his doctorate at the University of California at Berkeley in 1988. Since joining the U. of I. in 1992, he has distinguished himself in chemical and biological physics with laser manipulation techniques and computational modeling that have increased understanding of protein folding, chemical bonds and molecular energy flow.
The academy has more than 4,000 Fellows and 600 Foreign Honorary Members, including more than 250 Nobel laureates and 60 Pulitzer Prize-winners.