Nadya Mason

As she described herself in interview, Mason was born in New York City,^[when?] and lived in Brooklyn for the first six years of her life; after that, she grew up in Washington, D.C. before moving to Houston.^{[10][full citation needed]} As described to Aubrie Williams in interview, Mason spent from ages 7–16 ("most of my childhood") involved in gymnastics at a highly competitive level, making the Junior National Team at age 13, and ranking 27th nationally at age 15.^[11] This period of intensive training included a year (1986) spent with Bela Karolyi,^[12] a demanding course she ultimately set aside to pursue science.^[11]

Mason completed a bachelor's degree at Harvard University in 1995,^[13] and a PhD under Aharon Kapitulnik at Stanford University in 2001.^[14] Mason always enjoyed math and science, and completed several science-focused internships during her education,^[15] including a fellowship in condensed matter at Bell Laboratories.^[when?][16]

Mason returned to Harvard as a MRSEC Postdoctoral Fellow in 2001, where she was elected junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows.^[13] In 2005, Mason joined the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign as an assistant professor.^[17] In 2014 she was appointed a John Bardeen Faculty Scholar in Physics at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.^[18] In 2016 she was promoted to full Professor.^[19] As of 2018, Mason was a General Councillor for the American Physical Society.^[17]

On October 1, 2023, Mason was appointed Dean of the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, succeeding Matthew J. Tirrell.^[1][2]

Research

In 2006, Mason was on a team that was first to demonstrate the non-equilibrium Kondo effect, and in 2011 she was on a team that observed individual superconducting bound states in graphene-based systems.^{[independent source needed][18][20]} In the 2014-2018 period, Mason's research focused on carbon nanotubes, graphene, nanostructured semiconductors and topological insulators.^[17][21] In these systems she has concentrated on electron interactions, and how to apply her understanding to quantum computing.^{[17][12][needs update]}

As of 2017, Mason was Chair of the APS Committee on Minorities, and was featured by the National Society of Black Physicists for Black History Month in 2017.^[22] Also in 2017, she discussed the limit on the size of electronics and impact of novel nanomaterials on the "Saturday Physics for Everyone 2017" program of the UIUC YouTube channel.^[23]

In November 2019, Mason gave a TED talk called, "How to spark your creativity, scientifically."^[24]

In 2026, Mason was chosen to be a member of the Department of Energy's Office of Science Advisory Committee.^[25]

• 2021 - Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,^[26] and to the US National Academy of Sciences^[8]
• 2020 - Edward A. Bouchet Award, American Physical Society^[27]
• 2018 - Fellow, American Physical Society^[28]
• 2013 - Dean's Award for Excellence in Research, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign^[29]
• 2012 - Maria Goeppert Mayer Award, American Physical Society^[30]
• 2009 - Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision Awards^[31][32]
• 2008 - Diverse Magazine "Emerging Scholar" ^[31][33]
• 2007 - National Science Foundation CAREER award^[34]

Mason is also described as having been named a Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellow, the dates of which is unclear from the sources.^[31][33]

As of a September 2011 interview, Mason was indicated as being married (husband, Dillon), and having two daughters.^[11]

• Interview of Nadya Mason by David Zierler on 2020 August 7, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics, College Park, MD USA