Kenneth G. Libbrecht
American physicist
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Kenneth G. Libbrecht [1] is an American physicist whose research has focused on crystal growth, gravitational wave detection, laser cooling and trapping of neutral atoms, helioseismology, and physics laboratory teaching. He has been a Professor of Physics at the California Institute of Technology (a.k.a. Caltech) since 1984, and he was the physics department chair from 1997-2013.
National Outdoor Book Award (2004)
IBPA Book Award (2004)
Lennart Nilsson Award (2010)
Kenneth G. Libbrecht | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 1958 (age 67) Fargo, North Dakota, USA |
| Alma mater | Caltech (BS,1980), Princeton (PhD,1984) |
| Awards | Newton Lacy Pierce Prize (1991) National Outdoor Book Award (2004) IBPA Book Award (2004) Lennart Nilsson Award (2010) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Crystal Growth, Solar Astronomy, Helioseismology, LIGO, AMO Physics, Undergraduate physics laboratory teaching |
| Institutions | Caltech, 1984-present |
| Doctoral advisor | Robert Dicke |
Biography
Libbrecht graduated from West Fargo High School in 1976, attended one year at the University of North Dakota, and then continued his studies at Caltech, where he received a B.S. in physics in 1980. He further studied as a graduate student under Robert Dicke at Princeton University, where he measured the solar oblateness as a test of General Relativity, receiving his Ph.D. in 1984.[2]
Libbrecht won the 2004 National Outdoor Book Award (Nature & Environment category) for The Snowflake.[3] Libbrecht was a scientific consultant on snowflakes for the 2013 Film Frozen.[4]
Four of Libbrecht's snowflake pictures were selected by the United States Postal Service as designs for stamps for the 2006 winter holiday season, with a total printing of approximately 3 billion stamps.[5] In 2010, Libbrecht was the recipient of the Lennart Nilsson Award. In conjunction with the award, the Swedish postal service, PostNord, released a series of stamps featuring some of his images of snowflakes.[6]