Mark Raizen

Mark G. Raizen was born in New York City in 1955, and moved with his family to Israel in 1967. He graduated from De Shalit High School in Rehovot in 1973. Raizen received his undergraduate degree in mathematics with honors from Tel-Aviv University in 1980. He continued his graduate education at The University of Texas at Austin, under the guidance of Steven Weinberg (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1979) and Jeff Kimble (California Institute of Technology). Raizen completed his Ph.D. in 1989. He then was awarded a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder where he worked with Dr. David Wineland (Nobel Prize in Physics, 2012). Dr. Raizen returned to The University of Texas at Austin as an Assistant Professor of Physics in 1991. Dr. Raizen is now a tenured Full Professor of Physics at The University of Texas at Austin, and holds the Sid W. Richardson Foundation Regents Chair in Physics, one of only four such chairs in the department. He is the recipient of many prizes and awards, including the I. I. Rabi Prize (1999), the Max Planck Prize (2002), and the Lamb Medal (2008). Dr. Raizen is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America. Dr. Raizen directs an experimental research program, and in recent years developed general methods for cooling almost any atom in the periodic table near the absolute zero of temperature. This work realizes for the first time a famous thought experiment known as Maxwell's Demon, proposed by James Clerk Maxwell in 1871. These general methods are likely to far-surpass laser cooling which was recognized by the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics. Beyond basic physics, these same methods have world-changing applications: They will transform the way that isotopes are separated, providing crucial isotopes for humanity. The same methods will also enable the control of the nanoscale from the bottom-up, creating a new field that he has called Atomoscience. Raizen is a global leader in atomic physics and ultra-cold atoms who has pioneered new methods for controlling atoms in the gas phase with broad-reaching applications for fundamental physics, nanoscience and medicine. He has developed a method for separating isotopes that could make them more readily available for lifesaving medical treatments, including new cancer therapies. He established The Pointsman Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the production and use of stable isotopes and radioisotopes in research and medical therapy.