Phi Lambda Upsilon Xi Chapter - University of Pittsburgh Francis Clifford Phillips Lecture Series 1999 Phillips Lecturer Brief Biography of Alexander Pines, University of California at Berkeley Physical Chemistry, Solid State, NMR and Optics, Experiment and Theory Alexander Pines was born in 1945. He grew up in Rhodesia and went to Israel for his undergraduate work in mathematics and chemistry. In 1968 he came to the United States where he obtained his Ph.D. in Chemical Physics at M.I.T. and joined the faculty at Berkeley in 1972. He is currently Faculty Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Chancellor's Research Professor in Chemistry, and Glenn T. Seaborg Professor of Chemistry at the University of California. Among his many Lectureships, Pines has been Joliot- Curie Professor at the Ecole Superieure de Physique et Chemie in Paris, Hinshelwood Professor at Oxford University, Centenary Lecturer of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Loeb Lecturer at Harvard University. Pines' research has been mainly in nuclear magnetic resonance theory and experiment; his techniques are widely used in chemistry and materials science. Together with J. S. Waugh he introduced high resolution NMR of dilute spins such as carbon-13 in solids using cross polarization and they demonstrated time-reversal of many-body spin couplings. In recent years he has developed the area of multiple-quantum spectroscopy in which groups of spins flip coherently while absorbing or emitting groups of quanta. His techniques of zero-field NMR using both field cycling and superconducting (SQUID) detectors are being applied to the study of molecular structure and dynamics in condensed phases. His development of double rotation and dynamic-angle spinning, based on icosahedral symmetry, extended high-resolution NMR to quadrupolar nuclei such as oxygen-17 and aluminum-27 in solids. His recent interests also include the geometric (Berry) phase and gauge kinematics, drawing on the analogy between the evolution of quantum spin systems and cats falling from trees. His combination of laser- polarized xenon and cross-polarization has led to selective "lighting up" of NMR and MRI in solutions and on surfaces. Most recently he has developed injection-based delivery of laser- polarized xenon for the study of organisms. Two of his patents have been recognized by R & D-100 Awards. In 1991 Pines was awarded the Wolf Prize in Chemistry (together with R. R. Ernst) and in 1995 an Ampere Advanced Institute in NMR was held at Villa Monastera, Varenna, Italy in honor of Pines' fiftieth birthday. His other awards and honors include the ACS Baekeland Award in Pure Chemistry, the ACS Nobel Signature Award for Graduate Education, the ACS Harrison Howe Award of the Rochester Section, the DOE Ernest O. Lawrence Award, the Pittsburgh Spectroscopy Award, the Bourke Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the ACS Langmuir Award, the Distinguished Teaching Award of the University of California, and the Robert Foster Cherry Great Teacher Award of Baylor University. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and past President of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance. Internet: http://waugh.cchem.berkeley.edu/ "Berry’s Phase," Ann. Rev. Phys. Chem. 41, 601 (1990). "Enhancement of Solution NMR and MRI with laser-polarized Xenon," Science 271, 1848 (1996). "Triple-quantum-2D Al-27 magic-angle spinning NMR study of aluminosilicate and aluminate crystals and glasses," J. Am. Chem. Soc. 118, 7209 (1996). "Determination of dihedral angles in peptides through experimental and theoretical studies of alpha-carbon chemical shielding tensors," J. Am. Chem. Soc. 119, 7829 (1997). "Enhancement of Surface NMR by laser-polarized noble gases," Phys. Rev. B 55, 11604 (1997). "Reversal of radio-frequency-driven spin diffusion by reorientation of the sample spinning axis," J. Chem. Phys. 108, 826 (1998). [About PLU] [History] [Purpose] [Members] [Minutes] [Phillips Lecture] [Upcoming Events] [To Contact Us] [Home] This page was last revised on September 16, 2002.