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Plenary Speakers

Professor Roberto Car
Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry,
Princeton University

EDUCATION BACKGROUND
Ph.D., Milan Institute of Technology, 1971.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Professor Car received a doctorate in nuclear engineering from the Milan Institute of Technology in 1971. Since then he has worked at the University of Milan, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, and the University of Geneva. He has directed the Institute for Numerical Research in the Physics of Materials in Lausanne. He joined the Princeton University faculty in 1999.

RESEARCH INTERESTS
His research has been focused on understanding physical and chemical properties of materials at the atomistic scale using computational methods based on first-principles microscopic quantum theory. Systems of interest include liquid and amorphous materials, surfaces and interfaces, defects, clusters, and molecular materials.

HONORS
- Hewlett-Packard Prize of the European Physical Society
- Rahman Prize of the American Physical Society
- Fellow of the American Physical Society

Professor David M. Ceperley
Professor of Physics, Department of Physics
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

EDUCATION BACKGROUND
Ph.D., Cornell University, 1976.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Professor Ceperley received his BS in physics from the in 1971 and his Ph.D. in physics from Cornell University in 1976. After two years of postdoctoral work at Rutgers University, he worked as a staff scientist at both Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. In 1987, he joined the Department of Physics at Illinois. Professor Ceperley is also the applications coordinator and a staff scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at NCSA.
Professor Ceperley's work can be broadly classified into technical contributions to quantum Monte Carlo methods and contributions to our physical or formal understanding of quantum many-body systems. His most important contribution is his calculation of the energy of the electron gas, providing basic input for most numerical calculations of electronic structure. He was one of the pioneers in the development and application of path integral Monte Carlo methods for quantum systems at finite temperature, such as superfluid helium and hydrogen under extreme conditions.

RESEARCH INTERESTS
Condensed matter physics, electronic-structure-based simulations, silicon crystals, metal surfaces, metalization of hydrogen at high pressure, rare gas layers, simulations of solids and liquids as a function of temperature, atoms in strong magnetic fields, and the fractional quantum Hall effect.

HONORS
- American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1999)
- Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics (1998)
- APS Fellow 1992-present
- Feenberg Memorial Medal (1994)
- Xerox Faculty Award (1990)
- Joliet Curie Fellowship (1976)

Professor James E. Gubernatis
Professor, Los Alamos National Laboratory

EDUCATION BACKGROUND
Ph.D. in Physics, Case Western Reserve University, 1972.

RESEARCH INTERESTS
Numerical simulations of strongly correlated electron systems and exploring algorithms for quantum simulations of physical phenomena on quantum computers.

HONORS
- Fellow of the American Physical Society
- Chairman of APS Computational Physics Division, 2002
- US representative to the Commission on computational physics of the International
- Union of Pure and Applied Physics, 2002-2005

Professor David P. Landau
Distinguished Research Professor of Physics,
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Georgia

EDUCATION BACKGROUND
A.B. in Physics, Princeton University, 1963
Ph.D. in Physics, Yale University, 1967

RESEARCH INTERESTS
Phase transitions and critical phenomena in magnets, alloys (including binary semiconductors), and equilibrium polymer systems. Emphasis is placed on high resolution simulations of static and dynamic properties of both bulk and surface properties using methods such as Monte Carlo, kinetic Monte Carlo, spin dynamics, and molecular dynamics. Developing new methodologies and scalable algorithms for parallel supercomputers.

HONORS
- Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, 1975
- Fellow, American Physical Society, 1976
- Creative Research Medal, University of Georgia, 1981
- Jesse W. Beams Award for Outstanding Research, American Physical Society S.E. Section, 1987
- Alexander von Humboldt Senior U.S. Scientist Award, 1988
- Senior Teaching Fellow, University of Georgia, 1993
- Fellow, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 1999
- Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics, American Physical Society, 2002
- Lamar Dodd Creative Research Award, 2003
- Senior Guangbiao Distinguished Professor of Physics, Zhejiang University, 2004
- Fellow of the Institute of Science (London), 2004

Professor Steven G. Louie
Professor of Physics, Department of Physics,
University of California, Berkeley

EDUCATION BACKGROUND
Ph.D. in Physics, University of California, Berkeley, 1976

RESEARCH INTERESTS
Professor Louie's research interests are in theoretical condensed matter physics and nanoscience covering the areas of: electronic and structural properties of crystals, surfaces, interfaces and clusters; quasiparticle and optical excitations in solids; electron correlation effects in bulk and reduced-dimensional systems; nanotubes and nanostructures; superconductivity; ab initio pseudopotential theory; electron transport through single molecules. He has published over 370 papers, co-edited 2 monographs, and has been awarded 5 U.S. patents.

AWARDS AND HONORS
- Closs Lecturer, University of Chicago (2006)
- Elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences (2005)
- Distinguished Visiting Chair Professor, National Taiwan University, Taiwan (2005)
- The Foresight Institute Richard P. Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology (shared with M. L. Cohen, 2003)
- Identified by the ISI as one of the most highly cited researcher in physics and in nanoscience
- The Davisson-Germer Prize in Surface Physics of the American Physical Society (1999)
- The Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics of the American Physical Society (1996)
- Outstanding Performance Award, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (1995)
- U. S. Department of Energy Award for Sustained Outstanding Research in Solid State Physics (1993)
- Municipal Chair Visiting Professor, J. Fourier University, Grenoble, France (1990)
- John S. Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (1989-90)
- Eminent Visiting Scholar, University of Tokyo (1989)
- Miller Institute Research Professorship (1986-1987, 1995)
- Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (1985)
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship (1980-1982)
- National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship (1977)

Professor Andrew C.-C. Yao
Professor, Center for Advanced Study,
Tsinghua University

EDUCATION BACKGROUND
Ph.D. in Physics, Harvard University, 1972
Ph.D. in Computer Science, University of Illinois, 1975

RESEARCH INTERESTS
Analysis of algorithms, computational complexity, communication complexity, cryptographic protocols, quantum computing

AWARDS AND HONORS
- George Polya Prize, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 1987
- Guggenheim Fellowship, 1991
- Fellow, Association for Computing Machinery, 1995
- Donald E. Knuth Prize, ACM SIGACT-IEEE TCMFCS, 1996
- Member, US National Academy of Sciences, 1998
- Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2000
- Member, Academia Sinica, 2000
- A.M. Turing Award, Association for Computing Machinery, 2000
- Pan Wen-Yuan Research Award, Pan Wen-Yuan Foundation, 2003
- Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2003
- Doctor of Science, Honoris Causa, City University of Hong Kong, 2003
- Alumni Award for Distinguished Service, College of Engineering, University of Illinois, 2004
- Foreign Member, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2004
- Doctor of Engineering, honoris Causa, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2004