Paul Canfield
NEWS RELEASE
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Iowa State University
www.las.iastate.edu
2-26-09
Contacts:
Paul Canfield, canfield@ameslab.gov
Steve Jones, Liberal Arts & Sciences Communications, (515) 294-0461 (jones@iastate.edu)
Physicist Paul Canfield honored with ISU’s
Robert Allen Wright Endowed Professorship
AMES, Iowa – Paul Canfield said it simply: “I make and measure materials.”
The Iowa State University Distinguished Professor in Liberal Arts and Sciences and professor of physics has spent a career in condensed matter physics, earning an international reputation for developing new metals or improving existing ones.
For Canfield’s accomplishments in the lab and the classroom, he has been honored with the Robert Allen Wright Endowed Professorship at Iowa State.
The five-year professorship will provide him with supplemental annual funds for his teaching and research efforts. Endowed professorship funds often are used to support graduate students and post-doctoral researchers, purchase additional equipment and supplies, and provide travel to professional meetings or for professional development.
Robert Allen Wright was a member of the Iowa State Class of 1913. He and his wife, Estyl, established the Robert Allen Wright Endowment for Excellence through a 1985 bequest.
A prominent cattle farmer and businessman, Wright served on the boards of Living History Farms, the Iowa Taxpayers Association and the Hoover Library in West Branch. A longtime supporter of Iowa State, Wright was an ISU Foundation Governor and was a member of ISU’s Order of the Knoll. He was named Cy’s Favorite Alum in 1976.
“Paul Canfield is an excellent choice for the Robert Allen Wright Endowed Professorship at Iowa State,” said Michael Whiteford, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “Professor Canfield is an exemplary faculty member, both as a world-class researcher and as an award-winning classroom teacher.”
Whiteford added that endowed professorships provide benefits to many individuals.
“Endowed professorships are essential to the success of our college because they allow us to attract and retain the very best faculty members. This, in turn, is crucial in attracting top-notch graduate students and giving undergraduate students the opportunity to study and work with world-class scholars.”
Breakthroughs in condensed matter physics, said Canfield, have changed the way we live. “There are improvements in endless technologies all coming from condensed matter physics,” he said. “It’s an incredibly rich and complex science.”
As an example, he explained that the discovery, some 25 years ago, of vastly improved ferromagnets made possible the miniaturization we have today.
“Without that, you wouldn’t have your little earbuds or the ability to miniaturize things because the magnets did not have enough power density. Your laptop, your iPod, improved telecommunications…that’s all possible because of extensive basic research in condensed matter physics.
“You don’t have electrical engineering, computer science or even civil engineering without condensed matter physics. All of that depends on hybrid, new or improved materials that spring from this field of science.”
A native of Virginia, Canfield doubled majored in physics and chemistry at the University of Virginia before concentrating in physics. He earned his Ph.D. at UCLA, and ever since graduate school, he says, he has “staggered back to the no man’s land between physics, chemistry and metallurgy.”
Canfield, who joined Ames Lab and ISU’s condensed matter physics research group in 1992, is specifically interested in the properties of conducting and magnetic materials.
“Superconductivity [the ability of electrical current to flow through materials without resistance] is an obvious example, but other properties have potential applications. We examine them because they allow us to ask precise, basic questions, and they may lead to the better design of useful materials in the future.”
Once a material has been designed or discovered, his experimental group measures its ability to carry electricity or be magnetized under different extremes in temperature or magnetic field. “With these data we try to understand what nature has told us,” he added.
That leads to the next question, and the next modification of materials or properties.
On the most basic level, Canfield, said, “We think, make, measure and think. It can all be in a day, or over a decade. We’re an experimental group, so we do measurements on materials. We try to discover or design materials that will bring questions or answers into particularly sharp focus.”
Canfield is also an accomplished teacher, having won several classroom awards. He’s known for using demonstrations to keep the students’ attention in large lecture halls. “I like to make things go bang,” he said with a smile. “It gets the attention of the guy in the back row.”
His lectures can be heavy on liquid nitrogen and hydrogen balloons. “There are a few times when I can get them together, and those are good lectures,” he laughed.
Endowed professorships are especially important to Iowa State’s mission of creating, sharing and applying knowledge. Faculty who hold endowed professorships conduct some of Iowa State’s most significant research, attract the best students who want to work with recognized leaders, and bring prestige to the recipient and Iowa State University.
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