User:Scidean

Daniel L. Stein (born August 19, 1953), American physicist, is Dean of Science and Professor of Physics and Mathematics at New York University.

He has contributed to a wide range of scientific fields. His early research covered diverse topics, including theoretical work on protein biophysics, biological evolution, amorphous semiconductors, quantum liquids, topology of order parameter spaces, liquid crystals, neutron stars, and the interface between particle physics and cosmology. His primary focus, however, has been on quenched randomness in condensed matter and on stochastic processes in both irreversible and extended systems. His research on these topics was cited by the American Association for the Advancement of Science as "pioneering work on the statistical mechanics of disordered and noisy systems".

He is best known for work on hierarchical dynamics (in collaboration with Elihu Abrahams, Philip Anderson, and Richard Palmer); for oberving that protein fluctuational conformations can be modelled using spin glass techniques; for constructing a theory of fluctuation-driven transitions in the absence of detailed balance (in collaboration with Robert Maier); for applying stochastic methods to determine lifetimes, stability, and decay of nanowires and nanomagnets (with a variety of collaborators); and for a series of rigorous and analytical results (largely with Charles Newman) on short-range spin glasses, including the introduction of the Newman-Stein metastate as a general mathematical tool for analyzing the thermodynamic properties of disordered systems.

Stein graduated from Brown University in 1975 with degrees in both physics and mathematics. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton University in 1979, under the thesis supervision of Philip Anderson. He stayed on as a faculty member in the Princeton Physics Department until 1987, when he moved to the University of Arizona Physics Department, where he served as Department Head from 1995-2005. During that period he also served as the first Director of the Complex Systems Summer School in Santa Fe (1988, 1990-1998). In 2005 he moved to New York University as Professor of Physics and Mathematics and as Provost Faculty Fellow, and became the NYU Dean of Science in September 2006. He currently serves on the Santa Fe Institute Science Board and on the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, and is a General Member of the Aspen Center for Physics. His awards include a Sloan Foundation Fellowship (1985-1989), election to Fellowship of the American Physical Society (1999), University of Arizona Commission on the Status of Women Vision 2000 Award, and election to Fellowship of the American Assoication for the Advancement of Science (2008). He is married with two daughters, and lives in New York City.

References

Publications, Books, and Patents of Daniel L. Stein: http://www.physics.nyu.edu/~ds1752/allpubs.html

Links

Santa Fe Institute (www.santafe.edu) Aspen Center for Physics (www.aspenphys.org)