School of Humanities and Sciences
Showing 351-360 of 378 Results
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Ward Watt
Professor, Biology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsEvolutionary adaptive mechanisms, molecules to ecosystems
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Robert Waymouth
Robert Eckles Swain Professor of Chemistry and Professor, by courtesy, of Chemical Engineering
BioRobert Eckles Swain Professor in Chemistry Robert Waymouth investigates new catalytic strategies to create useful new molecules, including bioactive polymers, synthetic fuels, and sustainable plastics. In one such breakthrough, Professor Waymouth and Professor Wender developed a new class of gene delivery agents.
Born in 1960 in Warner Robins, Georgia, Robert Waymouth studied chemistry and mathematics at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia (B.S. and B.A., respectively, both summa cum laude, 1982). He developed an interest in synthetic and mechanistic organometallic chemistry during his doctoral studies in chemistry at the California Institute of Technology under Professor R.H. Grubbs (Ph.D., 1987). His postdoctoral research with Professor Piero Pino at the Institut fur Polymere, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, focused on catalytic hydrogenation with chiral metallocene catalysts. He joined the Stanford University faculty as assistant professor in 1988, becoming full professor in 1997 and in 2000 the Robert Eckles Swain Professor of Chemistry.
Today, the Waymouth Group applies mechanistic principles to develop new concepts in catalysis, with particular focus on the development of organometallic and organic catalysts for the synthesis of complex macromolecular architectures. In organometallic catalysis, the group devised a highly selective alcohol oxidation catalyst that selectively oxidizes unprotected polyols and carbohydrates to alpha-hyroxyketones. In collaboration with Dr. James Hedrick of IBM, we have developed a platform of highly active organic catalysts and continuous flow reactors that provide access to polymer architectures that are difficult to access by conventional approaches.
The Waymouth group has devised selective organocatalytic strategies for the synthesis of functional degradable polymers and oligomers that function as "molecular transporters" to deliver genes, drugs and probes into cells and live animals. These advances led to the joint discovery with the Wender group of a general, safe, and remarkably effective concept for RNA delivery based on a new class of synthetic cationic materials, Charge-Altering Releasable Transporters (CARTs). This technology has been shown to be effective for mRNA based cancer vaccines. -
Risa Wechsler
Director, Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), Humanities and Sciences Professor and Professor of Physics and of Particle Physics and Astrophysics
BioRisa Wechsler is the Humanities and Sciences Professor and the Director of the Kavli Institute of Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology. She is also Professor of Physics and Professor of Particle Physics & Astrophysics at SLAC National Laboratory, Director of the Center for Decoding the Universe, and an Associate Director at Stanford Data Science. She is a cosmologist whose work investigates some of the most profound questions about our universe — how it formed, what it is made of, how it is structured, and what its future holds.
Her research focuses on understanding the evolution of galaxies, the large-scale structure of the universe, and the nature of dark matter and dark energy. She uses large numerical simulations, theoretical models, and the largest observed maps of the universe to explore these forces that shape the cosmos. Her recent work also investigates the formation and cosmological context of the Milky Way and probes dark matter through small-scale cosmic structure, and explores how data science and AI/ML can drive new understanding. Wechsler has played key leadership roles in major international collaborations including the Dark Energy Survey, Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, and Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and time, a decade-long survey that will reveal the dynamic universe in unprecedented detail. She is recently involved in the Via Survey, which will map the Milky Way at high precision to probe dark matter physics in new ways.
Wechsler is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Paul Wender
Francis W. Bergstrom Professor and Professor, by courtesy, of Chemical and Systems Biology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMolecular imaging, therapeutics, drug delivery, drug mode of action, synthesis
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Carl Wieman
Cheriton Family Professor and Professor of Physics and of Education, Emeritus
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe Wieman group’s research generally focuses on the nature of expertise in science and engineering, particularly physics, and how that expertise is best learned, measured, and taught. This involves a range of approaches, including individual cognitive interviews, laboratory experiments, and classroom interventions with controls for comparisons. We are also looking at how different classroom practices impact the attitudes and learning of different demographic groups.
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Herman Winick
Professor of Applied Physics (Research), Emeritus
BioBorn and educated in New York City, he received his AB (1953) and his PhD (1957) from Columbia University. Following a postdoc position at the University of Rochester (1957-59) he continued work in high energy physics and accelerator development at the Cambridge Electron Accelerator at Harvard University (1959-73), serving as Assistant Director. He came to Stanford in 1973 to lead the technical design of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Project (SSRP), now SSRL, and served as Deputy Director of the laboratory until his semi-retirement in 1998 (www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu). He has taught physics at Columbia, Rochester, Harvard, MIT, Northwestern, University of Massachusetts, and Stanford. His 1970’s and 1980’s research developing periodic magnet systems (wigglers and undulators), had a major impact on synchrotron radiation sources and research facilities at Stanford and around the world. Beginning in 1992 he made major contributions to initiating and developing the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), the world’s first X-ray Free Electron Laser. Starting operation in 2009, the LCLS has shifted the major SLAC focus from high energy physics to x-ray sources and research. In 1997 he suggested SESAME, a synchrotron light source involving 9 countries in the Middle East. He has played a major role in the development of this project, on track to start research in 2016 (www.sesame.org.jo). He is now promoting a similar project in Africa. Throughout his adult life he has been an activist in helping dissidents and protecting academic freedom and human rights.
