Yale's DeMille Elected to Fellowship in American Physical Society

David P. DeMille, professor of physics at Yale University has been elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) for his innovative work using molecules as tools for the study of fundamental issues in physics.

The APS is one of the premier professional associations for researchers in the physical sciences. Election to Fellowship is limited to no more than one half of one percent of the membership and represents peer recognition for outstanding contributions to physics.

Among DeMille’s present research interests are experimental and theoretical studies of symmetry violations in atoms and molecules, and the development of sources of ultra-cold molecules. A primary goal of the latter work is the development of a large-scale quantum computer using individual molecules as bits.

The citation will be presented in March 2006 at the annual meeting of the APS Atomic, Molecular and Optical Division, the section that nominated him. It will read “For his pioneering experimental searches for violations of discrete symmetries in atoms and molecules and for his development of trapped polar molecules as potential systems for quantum computing.”

DeMille joined the Yale faculty as an assistant professor of physics in 1998 and was promoted through the ranks to full professorship in 2004. He received his A.B. in physics from the University of Chicago, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. Before coming to Yale he was a post-doctoral researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and an assistant professor at Amherst College.

As a teacher, DeMille has developed new courses on the undergraduate and graduate levels – of particular note a curriculum for junior-level Physics laboratory at Yale that introduces new, open-ended, multi-week “research-style” laboratory projects, allowing students to use cutting-edge equipment to study topics in NMR, laser spectroscopy, and quantum mechanics.

Among the honors DeMille has received are an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship (2000-2002), a Yale University Condé Award for Teaching Excellence in 2004, and a David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship for 1999 through 2004.

The invited speaker at over 70 colloquia, seminars, and conferences, DeMille has been principal or co- investigator on grants including the W.M. Keck Foundation Grant to the Yale Center for Quantum Computation and Information (2002-06), a Civilian Research and Development Foundation Cooperative Grant (with colleagues in St. Petersburg, Russia, 2002-04) and Federal Grants totaling $5.4M (2000-08).