Mark Hersam Selected for Medard W. Welch Award

Northwestern Engineering’s Mark Hersam has been selected to receive the 2020 Medard W. Welch Award, the top research award from the American Vacuum Society (AVS).

The award honors Hersam, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and (by courtesy) professor of electrical and computer engineering, for “pioneering contributions to the synthesis, surface science, chemical functionalization, and application of low-dimensional nanoelectronic materials.” AVS supports networking among academic, industrial, government, and consulting professionals involved in a variety of disciplines related to materials, interfaces, and processing. 

Hersam also serves as director of Northwestern’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC).

The award is the latest honor for Hersam, whose research interests include low-dimensional nanoelectronic materials. The Hersam Research Group specializes in the synthesis, purification, functionalization, and application of low-dimensional nanoelectronic materials including monodisperse carbon nanotubes, graphene, plasmonic nanoparticles, transition metal dichalcogenides, hexagonal boron nitride, black phosphorus, and borophene.

In 2014, Hersam was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. That same year, he was an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow. He’s also received the ACS Arthur K. Doolittle Award in Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering (2013); Materials Research Society Outstanding Young Investigator Award (2010); SES Research Young Investigator Award, Electrochemical Society (2010); and multiple fellowships.

Hersam is also a prolific author of academic papers and was published last year in Nature Reviews Materials and ACS Nano. He’s also been published in Nature and Advanced Materials, among others.

The awards ceremony is scheduled to occur Wednesday, October 28, at the AVS International Symposium in Denver, where Hersam has been invited to present a talk.