This article lists notable faculty (past and present) of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The University of California, Santa Barbara is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California. It is part of the University of California 10-university system. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers' college, UCSB joined the University of California system in 1944 and is the third-oldest undergraduate campus in the system, after UC Berkeley and UCLA. In 2021, the university enrolled 23,196 undergraduate and 2,983 graduate students.
David Jonathan Gross is an American theoretical physicist and string theorist. Along with Frank Wilczek and David Politzer, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of asymptotic freedom. Gross is the Chancellor's Chair Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and was formerly the KITP director and holder of their Frederick W. Gluck Chair in Theoretical Physics. He is also a faculty member in the UCSB Physics Department and is currently affiliated with the Institute for Quantum Studies at Chapman University in California. He is a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Walter Kohn was an Austrian-American theoretical physicist and theoretical chemist. He was awarded, with John Pople, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1998. The award recognized their contributions to the understandings of the electronic properties of materials. In particular, Kohn played the leading role in the development of density functional theory, which made it possible to calculate quantum mechanical electronic structure by equations involving the electronic density. This computational simplification led to more accurate calculations on complex systems as well as many new insights, and it has become an essential tool for materials science, condensed-phase physics, and the chemical physics of atoms and molecules.
Shuji Nakamura is a Japanese-born American electronic engineer and inventor specializing in the field of semiconductor technology, professor at the Materials Department of the College of Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and is regarded as the inventor of the blue LED, a major breakthrough in lighting technology.
The Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) is a research institute of the University of California, Santa Barbara. KITP is one of the most renowned institutes for theoretical physics in the world, and brings theorists in physics and related fields together to work on topics at the forefront of theoretical science. The National Science Foundation has been the principal supporter of the institute since it was founded as the Institute for Theoretical Physics in 1979. In a 2007 article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, KITP was given the highest impact index in a comparison of nonbiomedical research organizations across the U.S.
Finn Erling Kydland is a Norwegian economist known for his contributions to business cycle theory. He is the Henley Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He also holds the Richard P. Simmons Distinguished Professorship at the Tepper School of Business of Carnegie Mellon University, where he earned his PhD, and a part-time position at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH). Kydland was a co-recipient of the 2004 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, with Edward C. Prescott, "for their contributions to dynamic macroeconomics: the time consistency of economic policy and the driving forces behind business cycles."
Arthur C. Gossard was a professor of materials and electrical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1982, he co-discovered the fractional quantum Hall effect. His research is related to molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). He has a doctorate in physics from UC Berkeley. After university, he joined Bell Labs.
Henry Tzu-Yow Yang is a Chinese American engineer, university administrator, and the fifth and current chancellor of the University of California, Santa Barbara, a post he has held since 1994.
Galen D. Stucky is an American inorganic materials chemist who is a Distinguished Professor and the Essam Khashoggi Chair In Materials Chemistry at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is noted for his work with porous ordered mesoporous materials such as SBA-15. He won the Prince of Asturias Award in 2014, in the Scientific and Technological Research area. Stucky was elected a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1994, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2013.
The College of Engineering (CoE) is one of the three undergraduate colleges at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The Physics Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara has 58 faculty members. It offers academic programs leading to the B.A., B.S., and Ph.D. degrees.
The College of Letters and Science is the largest college at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The College, which offers 90 majors and 38 minors to over 20,000 undergraduates and 2,000 graduate students, has about 700 faculty members.
The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) traces its roots back to the 19th century, when it emerged from the Santa Barbara School District, which was formed in 1866 and celebrated its 145th anniversary in 2011. UCSB's earliest predecessor was the Anna S. C. Blake Manual Training School, named after Anna S. C. Blake, a sloyd-school which was established in 1891. From there, the school underwent several transformations, most notably its takeover by the University of California system in 1944.
Douglas James Scalapino is an American physicist noted for his contribution to theoretical condensed matter physics.
The Institute for Energy Efficiency (IEE) is a research institute of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). IEE is an interdisciplinary research institute dedicated to the development of science and technologies that increase energy efficiency, reduce energy consumption, and support an efficient and sustainable energy future.