IIT Physics Professor John Zasadzinski Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society
Illinois Institute of Technology is proud to announce that the American Physical Society (APS) has elected John Zasadzinski, professor of physics at the IIT College of Science and Letters, to its class of 2010 fellows for his contributions to superconducting tunneling spectroscopy.
The APS Fellowship program recognizes members who have made advances in knowledge through original research and publication. Each year, no more than one-half of one percent of the current membership of the society is recognized by their peers for election to the status of Fellow in The American Physical Society. New fellows will be honored at the APS annual meeting in Dallas, TX, March 21 – 25.
Zasadzinski joined IIT's physics department in 1982 and became chair of the Department of Biological, Chemical and Physical Sciences in 2005. He gained national and international visibility for his scholarly work in electron tunneling studies of novel superconductors using planar, point-contact and STM junctions. His group was among the first to observe two-band superconductivity in MgB2 and his studies of high temperature superconductors led to high profile publications, including an article in Nature and eight others in Physical Review Letters.
Zasadzinski's published work has been cited over 2300 times. Zasadzinski's current research focuses on conventional superconductors, for which he works in collaboration with Argonne and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratories, using tunneling spectroscopy to probe the surface superconductivity of Nb at the interface with its native oxide layers. This work has applications for the development of superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities which are used for particle accelerators, including the proposed international linear collider (ILC).
Zasadzinski has been recognized for excellence in teaching, voted by students as one of the top ten teachers at IIT in 2009 and as recipient of the Lewis College Junior Faculty teaching award in 1986. Zasadzinski earned a bachelor's degree in physics and mathematics from Illinois Benedictine University in Lisle, IL, and a Ph.D. in physics from Iowa State University.
Founded in 1890, IIT is a Ph.D.-granting university with more than 7,700 students in engineering, sciences, architecture, psychology, design, humanities, business and law. IIT's interprofessional, technology-focused curriculum is designed to advance knowledge through research and scholarship, to cultivate invention improving the human condition, and to prepare students from throughout the world for a life of professional achievement, service to society, and individual fulfillment. Visit www.iit.edu.
