Paul Alivisatos

Alivisatos Ph.D. ’86 serves as vice chancellor for research with overall responsibility for UC Berkeley’s research endeavor and primary leadership in research policy, planning and administration including relations between the university and industry, research compliance, research communications and research support for the Berkeley campus. He is Berkeley’s Samsung Distinguished Professor of Nanoscience and Nanotechnolog, directs the Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute (ENSI), and holds professorships in Berkeley’s departments of materials science and chemistry. In addition, he is a founder of two prominent nanotechnology companies, Nanosys and Quantum Dot Corp, now a part of Life Tech.

From 2009 to 2016, Alivisatos served as Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). During his tenure, the Lab began construction on new buildings for computational research, buildings efficiency, solar energy research, and biological sciences. He spearheaded several strategic initiatives that include energy innovation to help move humanity toward net zero impact in the global carbon cycle; a multidisciplinary approach to understanding and using microbial life for clean energy, environment, and health; an early-stage proposal to upgrade the Lab’s Advanced Light Source; and, harnessing the computing and data revolution to greatly advance scientific discovery. 

Alivisatos has been recognized for his accomplishments, with awards such as the National Medal of Science, the Wolf Prize in Chemistry, the Linus Pauling Medal, the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award, the Eni Italgas Prize for Energy and Environment, the Rank Prize for Optoelectronics, the American Chemical Society Awards for Materials Chemistry and for Colloid and Surface Science, and the Von Hippel Award of the Materials Research Society. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.