Phillips, Philip W.
Oral history interview with Philip Phillips, 2021 April 8.
Interview with Philip Phillips, Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Phillips recounts his early childhood in Tobago and the circumstances of his familys move to Washington State. He conveys his bemusement at having no degree in physics, as his graduate work at the University of Washington was in chemistry, where he completed a PhD on fluorescence lifetimes in single molecules under the direction of Ernest Davidson, and where David Boulware provided the intellectual entrě to physics. Phillips explains the opportunities that allowed him to pursue postdoctoral work at Berkeley and learning RG from Orlando Alvarez. He describes his first faculty position in the chemistry department at MIT, some of the research challenges given that his primary interests were in physics, and his feeling that MIT was at the time not a very inclusive atmosphere. Phillips discusses his work on the random dimer model and the happenstance opportunity that led to his faculty appointment at Illinois. He explains getting involved with the National Society of Black Physicists and his efforts to make the department more diverse. Phillips describes the research that was recognized by the Edward Bouchet award and why Tony Leggett is among the few physicists who truly understands Mottness. He discusses advances in strongly coupled electron systems and he explains why he dislikes the term condensed matter and prefers solid-state. Phillips reflects on STEMs response to the racial strife over the past year, and he discusses his current interests in pseudogaps. At the end of the interview, Phillips conveys his dream to solve the Hubbard model and to make advances in high-Tc research.
Philip W. Phillips is a Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Phillips completed his graduate studies in chemistry at the University of Washington and conducted postdoctoral research at Berkeley. He was previously on faculty at MIT.
Alvarez, Orlando, 1953-
Anderson, P. W. (Philip W.), 1923-
Birgeneau, Robert J. (Robert Joseph), 1942-
Davidson, Ernest R.
Georgi, Howard
Oppenheim, Irwin.
Schwinger, Julian, 1918-1994
Wolynes, P. G. (Peter G.)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
National Society of Black Physicists
University of California, Berkeley
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Washington
Washington State University
Condensed matter. fast
Diversity in higher education
Electron transport.
High temperature superconductivity.
Quantum chemistry.
Quantum Hall effect.
Renormalization group
Solid state physics
Trinidad and Tobago
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