Philip Bucksbaum elected to American Physical Society leadership position

Philip Bucksbaum

Following the 2017 American Physical Society (APS) general election, PHILIP BUCKSBAUM will be vice president of APS in 2018 – an election that places him in the presidential line. He will become president-elect in 2019 and president in 2020.

Bucksbaum is the Marguerite Blake Wilber Professor in Natural Science at Stanford and professor of photon science, of applied physics and of physics. He is also the director of the Stanford PULSE Institute and a member of Stanford Bio-X.

Bucksbaum has been at Stanford and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory since 2006. He previously served as the chair of photon science and division director for chemical science at SLAC. He helped develop the PULSE Institute, an independent Stanford laboratory and SLAC research center that focuses on ultrafast science.

Using SLAC’s novel laser sources, including the bright X-ray pulses of the Linac Coherent Light Source, Bucksbaum studies time-dependent quantum processes in atoms and molecules. His current research occurs on the femtosecond scale – that’s one quadrillionth of a second. This type of meticulous examination of atomic and molecular structure and motion could help develop new materials and chemicals, as well as further the understanding of natural processes.

Among many other honors, Bucksbaum became a fellow of APS in 1990 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2004 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012.