For release: May 8 , 2007

Contacts: 
Breehan Gerleman, Public Affairs, 515-294-9750

AMES LABORATORY'S SCHMALIAN NAMED FELLOW
OF AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY

AMES, Iowa – Jörg Schmalian, a physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory, was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society. 

Schmalian, who is also an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Iowa State University, was honored for his “pioneering contributions to the theory of strongly correlated materials, including studies on the role of disorder, frustration and unconventional pairing in quantum many-body systems.”  

The APS Fellow award is granted to no more than one-half of one percent of the current membership. Schmalian received his award in March at the national APS meeting in Denver.

Of his award, Schmalian said, “This is a significant award at a comparatively early stage of my career, and I am obviously very proud. In addition, I am grateful to my Ames Laboratory colleagues for the productive and interactive research atmosphere that led to this recognition.”

Schmalian has been a physicist at Ames Lab and a member of the physics and astronomy faculty since 1999. His research focus is theoretical condensed matter physics on a variety of complex systems, such as superconductors, quantum magnets and glasses.

Schmalian received his Ph.D. in physics from Freie University in Berlin, Germany in 1993. Before coming to Ames Lab, he was a research scientist at the Rutherford Laboratory in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom and a Fellow of St. Catherine’s College at Oxford University.

In 1994, Schmalian received the prestigious Carl Ramsauer Research Award for outstanding Ph.D. thesis from the Daimler Benz Corporation in Germany. In 2003, he received an Iowa State Foundation Award for Early Achievement in Research. Currently, Schmalian serves on the Science Steering Committee of the University of California’s Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter and is the Scientific Secretary of the Aspen Center for Physics, a high-level venue for topical workshops on physics theory.

Ames Laboratory, celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2007, is operated for the Department of Energy by Iowa State University. The Lab conducts research into various areas of national concern, including energy resources, high-speed computer design, environmental cleanup and restoration, and the synthesis and study of new materials.

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