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Girvin, Steven M.
Oral history interview with Steven Girvin, 2020 July 2.
In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Steven Girvin, Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics and Professor of Applied Physics at Yale University. Girvin recounts his childhood in Florida and then in a tiny town in the Adirondack region of New York, and he discusses his decision to attend Bates College as an undergraduate. Girvin explains some of the advantages he found studying physics in such a small program and he describes his early research on helicon waves. He discusses his dual interests in theoretical and experimental physics which he brought with him to his graduate work at Princeton, where he worked with John Hopfield, who introduced him to a problem from Bell Labs on optical fluorescence data from a semiconductor. Girvin describes his postdoctoral research with Jerry Mahan in Indiana and Sweden and explains the value he learned in doing diagram calculations. He discusses his work at National Bureau of Standards (NBS) and his involvement in neutron scattering and the quantum Hall effect. Girvin explains his research and teaching accomplishments at Indiana University, he discusses his contributions to superconductor insulator transitions, and he recounts the circumstances leading to him joining the faculty at Yale. At the end of the interview, Girvin describes his work for the Nanoscience and Quantum Engineering Institute and explains what excites him most about future prospects in quantum information.
American quantum physicist. Ph.D. physics, Princeton University (1977). Profesional experience includes: from postdoctoral research associate to distinguished professor of physics and adjunct professor of chemistry, Indiana University (19771979, 1987-2001); physicist, National Bureau of Standards (19791987); professor of physics and applied physics, Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics, associate director of Yale Institute for Nanoscience and Quantum Engineering, deputy provost for science and technology and for research, Yale University (2001-).
Girvin, Steven M.
Hopfield, John J.
Mahan, Gerald D.
Bates College (Lewiston, Me.)
Indiana University
Princeton University
United States. National Bureau of Standards
Yale Institute for Nanoscience and Quantum Engineering
Yale University
Quantum Hall effect.
Interviews. aat
Oral histories. aat
Transcripts. aat
Zierler, David, 1979-, interviewer.
AIP-ICOS
American Institute of Physics. Niels Bohr Library & Archives. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA
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