Rice professors named American Physical Society fellows

Two Rice University professors were named fellows of the American Physical Society (APS) this week. Ching-Hwa Kiang, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, and Tom Killian, professor of physics and astronomy, were nominated by their peers and elected by the APS Council.

	CHING-HWA KIANG		TOM KILLIAN

Kiang, who joined Rice in 2002, was cited for her work in experimental biological physics, especially for studying molecular interactions of nucleic acids and proteins using nanoscale probes. She was also recognized for her part in the discovery of single-walled carbon nanotubes as a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology in 1993 while doing her thesis research at IBM.

Killian, who came to Rice in 2001, was honored for his studies of strong Coulomb coupling in ultracold neutral plasmas during thermal equilibration, and of cold collisions and quantum degeneracy with alkaline-earth metal atoms.

Prior to joining Rice, while working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Killian produced the coldest neutral plasmas ever observed. His recent work includes the development of techniques to manipulate and probe biological structures with electromagnetic fields.

The APS, founded in 1899, conducts extensive programs in education, public outreach and media relations on behalf of its 46,000 members. Its nine topical groups cover all areas of physics research.

The full list of this year’s APS fellows is available at http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/fellowships/archive-all.cfm?year=2010.