Shaul Mukamel

Born Baghdad, Iraq

Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and of Physics & Astronomy, University of California at Irvine, USA

Email:smukamel@uci.edu
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1971 Ben-Atar Rector Prize, Tel-Aviv University; 1976 Fulbright Hayes Fellow; 1976 Dr. Chaim Weizmann Fellow; 1980 Alfred P. Sloan Fellow; 1984 Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar; 1987 Fellow of the American Physical Society; 1989 Fellow of the Optical Society of America; 1997 Guggenheim Fellow; 1997 Alexander von Humboldt Research Award for Senior US Scientists; 1998 Chair of Gordon Conference on Electronic Processes in Organic Materials, Newport, RI; 2000 General Co-Chair, Ultrafast Phenomena XII, Charleston, South Carolina; 2003 Ellis R. Lippincott Award, the Optical Society of America; 2005 JILA Distinguished Fellow; 2009 Centenary Visiting Professor, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India; 2010 Time Resolved Vibrational Spectroscopy (TRVS) Conference Award; 2011 Earle K Plyler Prize for Molecular Spectroscopy, American Physical Society; 2011 Senior Fellow, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS), School of Soft Matter Research, Albert-Ludwigs, Universitӓt, Freiburg, Germany; 2012 Hamburg Prize for Theoretical Physics; 2013 Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics, Physics of Quantum Electronics (PQE) Conference, Snowbird, Utah; 2013 Elected Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAAS); 2014 Mulliken Prize Medal, University of Chicago; 2015 Ahmed Zewail ACS Award in Ultrafast Science and Technology; 2015 Elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences; 2016 The Coblentz Society ABB Sponsored Bomem-Michelson Award; 2017 The Optical Society (OSA) William F. Meggers Award; 2017 Honorary Ph.D., University of Chicago; 2017 Distinguished Scientist Award of the Chinese Academy of Science; 2019 Joseph O. Hirschfelder Prize in Theoretical Chemistry, University of Wisconsin- Madison; 2020 Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science, American Physical Society (APS); 2020 Fellow of the Hagler Institute of Advanced Studies, Texas A&M University; 2021 Elected Member of the Indian National Science Academy; 2023 Elected Member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science

Author of:

Important Contributions:

• Mukamel had developed new classes of coherent ultrafast optical techniques for investiating molecular processes. His predictions were instrumental in creating the field of coherent ultrafast multidimensional optical spectroscopy and shaped the development of this field across the electromagnetic spectrum from the infrared to the X‐ray regime. Predictions were first made in 1993 for Raman echo measurements in molecular liquids and subsequently extended to the infrared and visible regimes. Mukamel had developed the unified theoretical and computational apparatus necessary for the design and interpretation of these measurements. His 1995 book “Principles of Nonlinear Optical Spectroscopy” had established the foundations of this field. Key discoveries include the study of protein structure, election and energy transfer in molecular aggregates and in photosynthetic antennae and reaction centers, and the photophysics and photochemistry of conical intersections. His more recent work has demonstrated how ultrashort x‐ray pulses can act as novel probes of electronic and nuclear coherences and how to employ the quantum nature of light and photon entanglement to reveal molecular processes with high spatial temporal and spectral resolutions that are not possible with classical light.