Engineering

Engineering’s Deem elected APS fellow

BY JENNIFER EVANS
Rice News staff

Rice University’s Michael Deem has been elected as fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), one of the highest academic achievements in physics as no more than one-half of one percent of APS members can be elected to fellowship.

In electing Deem, APS cited his ”elegant and pioneering work on the connection between spin glass physics and complex phenomena in biology ranging from the immune system response to the dynamics of evolution.”

Deem, the John W. Cox Professor in Biochemical and Genetic Engineering and professor of physics and astronomy, has earned attention in recent years for his groundbreaking research in the areas of immune system response and vaccines. His specialty is statistical mechanics, specifically the computer simulation of complex molecular systems. In many instances, the methods employed allow investigation of the increasingly tailored microscopic properties of material and biological systems. Deem is interested in four main areas of research: bioinformatics, immune system response, protein structure and drug discovery, and zeolite structure and nucleation. His group uses both simulation and analytical statistical mechanics to attack these problems.

Among Deem’s previous honors are the NSF CAREER Award, 1997-2001; Northrop Grumman Outstanding Junior Faculty Research Award in 1997; a Top 100 Young Innovator in MIT’s Technology Review, November 1999; an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in 2000; and the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award in 2002.

The names and fellowship citations of all those elected this year will be published in the March issue of APS News.