Douglas Natelson

Douglas Natelson is the Harry Carothers Wiess Professor of Physics at Rice University and associate Dean for Research in the Wiess School of Natural Sciences, where he leads a research group at the forefront of experimental nanoscale condensed matter physics. Natelson graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1993 with a B.S.E. in mechanical and aerospace engineering and a certificate in engineering physics. On his Hertz Fellowship he pursued his doctorate at Stanford University, completing his Ph.D. in 1998 under Douglas Osheroff—a Nobel laureate in physics—with a dissertation on the ultralow-temperature dielectric, acoustic, and thermal properties of glasses. He then spent two years as a postdoctoral member of technical staff at Bell Laboratories before joining Rice University in 2000. At Rice, Natelson has built one of the leading programs in nanoscale electronics and plasmonics. His group uses nanostructures as experimental platforms to probe fundamental questions in condensed matter physics: how do quantum effects manifest at the nanoscale, how does energy flow in systems far from equilibrium, and how do strongly correlated electrons behave in confined geometries? His work on atomic-scale metal junctions and molecular electronic devices has contributed to the understanding of quantum transport and vibrational heating at the single-molecule level. Natelson served as chair of Rice University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy from 2015 to 2021.