Eric Shirley

Eric Shirley is a Physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where he conducts research in condensed matter theory and x-ray science. Shirley earned his undergraduate degree from Cornell University before completing his Ph.D. in physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1987. His doctoral research on quasiparticle calculations in atoms and many-body core-valence partitioning contributed to the theoretical framework for understanding how electrons behave in correlated systems beyond simple independent-particle approximations. At NIST, Shirley has focused on the theory of x-ray scattering and spectroscopy, developing ab initio methods to calculate x-ray spectra of materials. His work has been applied to synchrotron measurements and has contributed to the NIST database resources used by physicists, chemists, and materials scientists around the world.