CQE researchers Vidya Madhavan, a physics professor from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Mercouri Kanatzidis, a chemistry professor from Northwestern University, were elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies.
The Academy, which is also an independent research center convening leaders from across disciplines, professions, and perspectives to address significant challenges, elects members who discover and advance knowledge and those who apply knowledge to the problems of society. Madhavan and Kanatzidis were among 270 inductees this year.
Vidya Madhavan’s research focuses on fundamental problems in quantum materials, unconventional and topological superconductors, and using molecular beam epitaxy to unravel the mysteries of complex systems at the atomic scale. Among her honors are a National Science Foundation CAREER Award and a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Experimental Investigator Award.
Madhavan is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. She also served as a member-at-large of the APS Division of Condensed Matter Physics.
Mercouri Kanatzidis has been a Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern University since 2006 and holds a joint appointment at Argonne National Laboratory.
Kanatzidis’ research focuses on solid-state chemistry, the science of synthesis for chalcogenides and intermetallics materials, the advancement of thermoelectric materials and their applications. He made seminal contributions in hybrid perovskite materials for solar cells and hard radiation detectors.
He invented chalcogels, a class of materials built like a sponge with the ability to soak up radionuclides and heavy metals from wastewater. Kanatzidis is the founder of Actinia, a startup company developing cutting-edge radiation detector materials for common imaging techniques used in medicine as well as security and testing.
Madhavan and Kanatzidis will be inducted at a ceremony on September 30, 2023 in Cambridge. The complete list of members elected to the academy is available on its website.
Read the full stories on the Northwestern and UIUC websites.