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Alan J. Heeger
Professor of Physics and of Materials
2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
"For the discovery and development of conductive polymers"
Professor Heeger shared the Nobel Prize for his role in the revolutionary discovery that plastics can have the properties of metals and semiconductors, a finding that created an important new field of research. A member of the UCSB faculty since 1982, Heeger was director of the Institute for Polymers and Organic Solids for 17 years, until 1999. The recipient of many international honors and awards, he is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. In 2003 he was named to a University of California Presidential Chair, an honor reserved for the institution's most distinguished scholars.