David Awschalom

David D. Awschalom (born 1956 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States) is an American condensed matter experimental physicist. He is best known for his work in spintronics in semiconductors. Awschalom was awarded the 2005 Oliver E Buckley Prize by the American Physical Society, and the 2005 Agilent Europhysics Prize by the European Physical Society. He is a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Awschalom graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign with a B.Sc. in physics. He received a Ph.D. in experimental physics from Cornell University. He is the Liew Family Professor in Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME). He previously served as the Director of the California Nanosystems Institute and was a professor in the Physics Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara as well as an associated faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He has a Hirsch number of 92.