Douglas Durian Named Mary Amanda Wood Professor of Physics

Douglas Durian, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, has been appointed Mary Amanda Wood Professor of Physics. A condensed matter experimentalist, Durian has made groundbreaking contributions in the areas of non-equilibrium soft matter physics and optics, particularly in foams, suspensions, and granular materials, as well as in the development of multiple light-scattering techniques for study of opaque materials. He is the author of nearly 150 articles, and his research has received support from numerous National Science Foundation and NASA grants. Durian has served as Chair of the American Physical Society Topical Group on Soft Matter and of the Gordon Research Conference on Granular Matter. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Papers in Physics, NPJ Microgravity, and the Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment. Durian leads the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Disordered Solids within the Penn Materials Research Science and Engineering Center.

This chair was established in 1947 through a bequest from James L. Wood, C’1887, in memory of his mother, Mary Amanda Wood. James Wood was a well-known landscape artist.