Charles Kane is the Class of 1965 Term Professor of Physics and Astronomy

Charles Kane has been appointed the Class of 1965 Term Professor of Physics and Astronomy in the School of Arts and Sciences. Kane’s research focuses on the theory of quantum electronic phenomena in solids, including theories of one-dimensional conductors, the fractional quantum Hall effect, carbon nanotubes, graphene, the quantum spin Hall effect, topological insulators, and topological quantum computing.

This year Kane was part of an international team named laureates of the 2013 Physics Frontier Prize, for work on the theoretical prediction and experimental discovery of topological insulators. In 2012 he became the first Penn professor to receive the Dirac Medal and Prize, given annually by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics to scientists who have made significant contributions to theoretical physics.

Last year Kane won the American Physical Society’s Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize, awarded for outstanding theoretical or experimental contributions to condensed matter physics. He also received a five-year, $500,000 grant from the Simons Foundation. Likened to the MacArthur Foundation’s “Genius Grants,” the monetary prize has no parameters dictating its use; rather, it is intended to enable the recipient to pursue long-term studies of fundamental questions in theoretical fields.

Kane received the European Physical Society’s Condensed Matter Europhysics Prize in 2010 and has been a fellow of the American Physical Society since 2006. He joined Penn’s faculty in 1991.

The Class of 1965 Term Chair is one of five created by the class in 1990. This unprecedented 25th Reunion class gift endowed a chair for each of the four undergraduate schools and one in honor of the College for Women.