2013 ACS Fellows

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Professor Charles Knobler is one of 96 distinguished members of the American Chemical Society who have been named as 2013 ACS Fellows.  The 2013 Fellows represent 28 National Committees, 30 Divisions, and 49 Local Sections of the ACS.  

C&EN: The new fellows will be feted at the society’s fall national meeting in Indianapolis this September, in a ceremony hosted by ACS Immediate Past-President Bassam Z. Shakhashiri.

“This is an honor bestowed on members for their outstanding accomplishments in scientific research, education, and public service,” said Shakhashiri in announcing the 2013 class of ACS Fellows. “Their individual contributions to ACS, to science, and to society are hallmarks of distinction in keeping with the ACS mission of advancing the chemical enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and its people. Selection as an ACS Fellow greatly honors each individual and also honors ACS. It is also a charge to each fellow to maintain his or her excellence in advancing chemistry and serving society.”

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Charles Knobler

ACS recognized Charles Knobler’s contributions to the sciences through “experimental studies in thermodynamics, critical phenomena in fluid mixtures, kinetics of phase transitions, monolayers at the air/water interface (recognized by ACS Award in Colloid and Surface Chemistry), and, recently, the physical chemistry of viruses.” ACS also recognized Knobler’s contributions to the ACS community through “Serv[ice] as Faculty Advisor for Student Chapter, as Senior Editor for the Journal of Physical Chemistry (1998–2005), and as co-organizer for the Colloid and Surface Science Symposium.”

The fellows program began in 2009 as a way to recognize and honor ACS members for outstanding achievements in and contributions to science, the profession, and ACS.

More information on the 2013 class of ACS Fellows is available at C&EN and American Chemical Society.

Personal bio of Prof. Knobler: My research, almost exclusively experimental, has been in soft condensed matter physics, a field that lies at the fuzzy border between physics, physical chemistry and chemical engineering. Much of the work concerned phase transitions and included studies of critical phenomena, nucleation and growth and two-dimensional systems, largely monolayers at the air/water interface. About 10 years ago, however, I and my colleague Bill Gelbart made an abrupt change and began to focus on viruses. We have played a major role in the development of the new science of physical virology in which the properties of viruses – their structures, their assembly, their replication and their mode of infection – are examined both experimentally and theoretically in terms of general physical principles. Our research is broad based and involves studies of bacterial, plant and mammalian viruses. Background: After receiving my BA in chemistry from NYU, I spent 3 years as a graduate student in Physical Chemistry at Penn State. As a recipient of a Fulbright Award I began research in Low-Temperature Molecular Physics in the Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory in the Netherlands. After completing my doctorate there I was a postdoc in chemistry at Ohio State and then in chemical engineering at CalTech. I then joined the faculty in chemistry at UCLA. Honors.: Fulbright Scholar. UCLA Herbert Newby McCoy Award, Fellow, American Physical Society, UCLA Alumni Association Distinguished Teaching Award, Alexander von Humboldt Senior Award, University of Mainz, UCLA College of Letters and Science Faculty Award, Alexander von Humboldt Senior Award, Max Planck Institute, Potsdam, Kolthoff Lecturer, University of Minnesota, American Chemical Society Award in Colloid Chemistry, Fellow, Royal Society of Chemistry, Dickson Award