Renowned physicist to join UC Irvine faculty

Zachary Fisk, a world-renowned physicist and member of the National Academy of Sciences, has been appointed as a distinguished professor in the School of Physical Sciences at UC Irvine.

Fisk, who will begin teaching at the start of spring quarter, is the 18th faculty member at UCI who holds the distinguished rank. The university reserves the title for those who have achieved recognition both at home and abroad in their fields of study.

An instructor at UC Davis until this spring, Fisk is the third distinguished professor UCI has appointed in the last year. In summer 2005, the campus added dancer and filmmaker Yvonne Rainer in the Claire Trevor School of the Arts and geneticist John Avise in the School of Biological Sciences.

At UCI, Fisk plans to build a laboratory, in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, devoted to the discovery and study of superconductors, materials that electricity can pass through undeterred. Superconducting materials are used in medical devices, transportation technology, computers and other digital systems.

Fisk, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, became a UCI faculty member this week.

“He certainly brings a very exciting research program that will attract a number of graduate students and inspire some of our undergraduates to follow physics careers by working in his lab,” said Ronald Stern, dean of the School of Physical Sciences. “He’ll bring a very vital research program.”

Stern added that the School of Physical Sciences courted Fisk for more than two years before convincing him to join the faculty. Before his tenure at UC Davis, where he also served as a distinguished professor, Fisk taught at the University of Chicago, UC San Diego, Florida State University and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

In addition to his teaching career, Fisk is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the National Academy of Sciences; both are elected positions. He won the American Physical Society International Prize for New Materials in 1990 and the E.O. Lawrence Award for physics the following year. His articles have appeared in Nature, Physical Review Letters and other publications.