Alice White (physicist)

Last updated
Alice White
Born
Alice Elizabeth White
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
  • Physics
  • Engineering
Institutions
Thesis Resistance rise in ultrathin metallic wires at low temperatures  (1982)
Academic advisors Douglas Osheroff
Website https://www.bu.edu/eng/profile/alice-white-ph-d/

Alice Elizabeth White is an American physicist. She is a professor and chair at the Boston University College of Engineering. [1] Previously, she was Chief Scientist at Bell Labs. [2] She is a fellow of the APS, the IEEE and the OSA.

Contents

Early life and education

White was born to physicist parents and grew up in New Jersey. Her father worked at Bell Labs. [3] Her parents helped to foster her interest in science and mathematics. [4]

She did her undergraduate studies at Middlebury College in Vermont, where she enjoyed a supportive science learning environment. She interned at Bell Labs during the summer through the Summer Research Program, eventually leading to a fellowship through the Graduate Research Program for Women to study at Harvard University. [3] [4] Her PhD thesis, completed in 1982, was entitled Resistance rise in ultrathin metallic wires at low temperatures. [5] She was mentored by Doug Osheroff of Bell Labs during her time at Harvard. [4]

Career

White returned to Bell Labs after her PhD, and occupied various roles in the organisation from 1982 to 2013. She spent two years as a post-doctoral fellow before joining the permanent technical staff. [3] Her last position was Chief Scientist. Her research areas during this period include mesotaxy techniques to grow metals on silicon, photonic circuitry, fiber optics and low temperature physics. [4]

White became chair of Boston University's mechanical engineering department in 2013 after 30 years at Bell Labs. [2] She is a professor of mechanical engineering, materials science, biomedical engineering, and physics. She is also affiliated with Boston University's Photonics and Nanotechnology centers. [1] She is interested in nanomechanics. [6] One potential application of her research is in creating biomedical structures to repair tissues after a heart attack. [7] She uses 3D printing technology to create micromechanical structures. [8] In 2014, she established the Multiscale Laser Lithography Lab at Boston University. [1] This facility houses a Direct Laser Writing tool to create 3D polymer structures at high resolution as well as systems to design and characterise samples. [9]

White and her team worked on 3D printing nasal swab components in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. [10] [11]

She became a Councilor-at-Large for the APS in 1993 and was a founding member of the Forum on Industrial and Applied Physics. [12] In 2001, she was chair of the APS Committee on the Status of Women in Physics. [13] She is a mentor for the Bell Labs Graduate Research Program for Women, and gives physics talks at elementary schools. [3]

Awards and honours

Personal life

White married another Bell Labs scientist and has two children. She enjoys skiing and cycling. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eli Yablonovitch</span> American physicist

Eli Yablonovitch is an American physicist and engineer who, along with Sajeev John, founded the field of photonic crystals in 1987. He and his team were the first to create a 3-dimensional structure that exhibited a full photonic bandgap, which has been named Yablonovite. In addition to pioneering photonic crystals, he was the first to recognize that a strained quantum-well laser has a significantly reduced threshold current compared to its unstrained counterpart. This is now employed in the majority of semiconductor lasers fabricated throughout the world. His seminal paper reporting inhibited spontaneous emission in photonic crystals is among the most highly cited papers in physics and engineering.

Xi-Cheng Zhang is a Chinese-born American physicist, currently serving as the Parker Givens Chair of Optics at the University of Rochester, and the director of the Institute of Optics. He is also the Chairman of the Board and President of Zomega Terahertz Corporation.

Rod C. Alferness was president of The Optical Society in 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony M. Johnson</span> American physicist, ultrafast optics (born 1954)

Anthony Michael Johnson is an American experimental physicist, a professor of physics, and a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). He is the director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Photonics Research (CASPR), also situated on campus at UMBC. Since his election to the 2002 term as president of the Optical Society, formerly the Optical Society of America, Johnson has the distinction of being the first and only African-American president to date. Johnson's research interests include the ultrafast photophysics and nonlinear optical properties of bulk, nanostructured, and quantum well semiconductor structures, ultrashort pulse propagation in fibers and high-speed lightwave systems. His research has helped to better understand processes that occur in ultrafast time frames of 1 quadrillionth of a second. Ultrashort pulses of light have been used to address technical and logistical challenges in medicine, telecommunications, homeland security, and have many other applications that enhance contemporary life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David A. B. Miller</span> British physicist

David A. B. Miller is the W. M. Keck Foundation Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, where he is also a professor of Applied Physics by courtesy. His research interests include the use of optics in switching, interconnection, communications, computing, and sensing systems, physics and applications of quantum well optics and optoelectronics, and fundamental features and limits for optics and nanophotonics in communications and information processing.

Shun Lien Chuang was a Taiwanese-American electrical engineer, optical engineer, and physicist. He was a Fellow of the IEEE, OSA, APS and JSPS, and professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yurii Vlasov</span> American engineering professor (born 1964)

Yurii Vlasov is a John Bardeen Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign (UIUC).

Manijeh Razeghi is an Iranian-American scientist in the fields of semiconductors and optoelectronic devices. She is a pioneer in modern epitaxial techniques for semiconductors such as low pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), vapor phase epitaxy (VPE), molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), GasMBE, and MOMBE. These techniques have enabled the development of semiconductor devices and quantum structures with higher composition consistency and reliability, leading to major advancement in InP and GaAs based quantum photonics and electronic devices, which were at the core of the late 20th century optical fiber telecommunications and early information technology.

Deborah J. Jackson is an American physicist and Program Manager at the National Science Foundation, and a Fellow of the National Society of Black Physicists. She was the first African American woman to receive a Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University. She is an expert on "electromagnetic phenomena" with a research and development career that spans the full range of the electromagnetic spectrum from materials studies using hard x-ray wavelengths, to nonlinear optics and spectroscopy in the near-infrared, to the fielding of radio frequency instrumentation on deep space missions such as Cassini and Mars Observer.

Jelena Vučković is a Serbian-born American professor and a courtesy faculty member in the Department of Applied Physics at Stanford University. She served as Fortinet Founders Chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University from August 2021 through June 2023. Vučković leads the Nanoscale and Quantum Photonics (NQP) Lab, and is a faculty member of the Ginzton Lab, PULSE Institute, SIMES Institute, and Bio-X at Stanford. She was the inaugural director of the Q-FARM initiative. She is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of The Optical Society, the American Physical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexandra Boltasseva</span> American physicist and engineer

Alexandra Boltasseva is Ron And Dotty Garvin Tonjes Distinguished Professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University, and editor-in-chief for The Optical Society's Optical Materials Express journal. Her research focuses on plasmonic metamaterials, manmade composites of metals that use surface plasmons to achieve optical properties not seen in nature.

Shanhui Fan is a Chinese-born American electrical engineer and physicist, with a focus on theoretical, computational and numerical aspects of photonics and electromagnetism. He is a professor of electrical engineering, and a professor of applied physics at Stanford University. He is the director of the Edward L. Ginzton Lab and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John E. Bowers</span> American physicist, engineer, and researcher

John E. Bowers is an American physicist, engineer, researcher and educator. He holds the Fred Kavli Chair in Nanotechnology, the director of the Institute for Energy Efficiency and a distinguished professor in the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Materials at University of California, Santa Barbara. He was the deputy director of American Institute of Manufacturing of Integrated Photonics from 2015 to 2022.

Arti Agrawal is a scientist and engineer known for her work on computational photonics as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM; she has been recognized in both of these areas by a number of awards. Her research is focused on numerical modeling and simulation of photonic devices and optical components. Agrawal is currently serving as Associate Professor and the Director of Women in Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Technology Sydney and Associate Vice President of Diversity for the IEEE Photonics Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hatice Altug</span> Turkish/American bioengineer

Hatice Altug is a Turkish physicist and professor in the Bioengineering Department and head of the Bio-nanophotonic Systems laboratory at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Switzerland. Her research focuses on nanophotonics for biosensing and surface enhanced spectroscopy, integration with microfluidics and nanofabrication, to obtain high sensitivity, label-free characterization of biological material. She has developed low-cost biosensor allowing the identification of viruses such as Ebola that can work in difficult settings and therefore particularly useful in case of pandemics.

Peter J. Delfyett Jr is an American engineer and Pegasus Professor and Trustee Chair Professor of Optics, ECE & Physics at the University of Central Florida College of Optics and Photonics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hui Cao</span> Chinese American physicist

Hui Cao (曹蕙) is a Chinese American physicist who is the professor of applied physics, a professor of physics and a professor of electrical engineering at Yale University. Her research interests are mesoscopic physics, complex photonic materials and devices, with a focus on non-conventional lasers and their unique applications. She is an elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Leda Maria Lunardi is a Brazilian-American electrical engineer whose research concerns electronics, photonics, and optoelectronics. She is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at North Carolina State University.

Alexander Luis Gaeta is an American physicist and the David M. Rickey Professor of Applied Physics at Columbia University. He is known for his work on quantum and nonlinear photonics. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, Optica, and of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shawn Yu Lin</span> Taiwanese American scientist

Shawn Yu Lin is a Taiwanese American physicist, researcher, and educator who made pioneering contributions to the field of photonics and photonic crystals. He authored more than 250 technical papers.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Alice White, Ph.D. | College of Engineering". www.bu.edu. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
  2. 1 2 "From Bell Labs to BU, with a Passion for Engineering | BU Today". Boston University. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Alice White | PhysicsCentral". www.physicscentral.com. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Alice White". www.aps.org. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
  5. White, Alice Elizabeth (1982). Resistance rise in ultrathin metallic wires at low temperatures (Thesis). OCLC   8876190.
  6. "BU Wins $20M for NSF Engineering Research Center | The Brink". Boston University. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
  7. Peebles-Wilkins, Wilma; Emerita, Dean. "The Transformers". Boston University. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
  8. "Nanoscribe 3D Printing and Integrating Microscopic Components Directly onto Integrated Circuits". 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing. 2018-07-11. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
  9. "Multiscale Laser Lithography Laboratory (ML-cubed) | Photonics Center". www.bu.edu. Retrieved 2021-04-11.
  10. "Watch These 3D-Printed Nasal Swab Prototypes Take Form". Boston University. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
  11. "BU Engineers Are Taking on the Coronavirus Pandemic". Boston University. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
  12. "Dr. Alice White, Director Lucent Technologies, GRPW '76". Archived from the original on 2021-04-11.
  13. "Past Chairs". aps.org. Retrieved 2021-04-11.
  14. "2013 OSA Fellows". osa.org. Archived from the original on 2014-02-25. Retrieved 2021-04-11.
  15. "IEEE Fellows Directory - Member Profile". services27.ieee.org. Retrieved 2021-04-11.
  16. "APS Fellow Archive". www.aps.org. Retrieved 2021-04-11.
  17. "Achievement Award Recipients". Middlebury. Retrieved 2021-04-11.
  18. "Prize Recipient". www.aps.org. Retrieved 2021-04-11.