March 9, 2009

UCSB Professor Wins National Chemistry Award

Gail Gallessich

Jacob Israelachvili, professor of chemical engineering at UC Santa Barbara, is the 2009 recipient of the American Chemical Society's Award in Colloid and Surface Chemistry.

Israelachvili is best known for developing the surface forces apparatus (SFA), which he originally built as a graduate student, to study surface forces in air. He has modified the instrument over the years for use in many different applications.

"Experimental measurements of intermolecular and surface forces did not really exist until Jacob Israelachvili came along with SFA," said Joseph A. Zasadzinski, a professor of chemical engineering at UCSB.

Israelachvili has used the SFA technique to examine intermolecular and intersurface forces in biological, complex fluid, and materials systems. According to colleagues, he is a physicist, a chemist, a biologist, and an engineer. In his work, he is both an experimentalist and a theoretician.

He has published more than 300 papers and is the author of a textbook titled Intermolecular and Surface Forces.

The award will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society later this month.

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The University of California, Santa Barbara is a leading research institution that also provides a comprehensive liberal arts learning experience. Our academic community of faculty, students, and staff is characterized by a culture of interdisciplinary collaboration that is responsive to the needs of our multicultural and global society. All of this takes place within a living and learning environment like no other, as we draw inspiration from the beauty and resources of our extraordinary location at the edge of the Pacific Ocean.