Naomi Halas, the Stanley C. Moore Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University in Texas, has been awarded the 2025 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry from The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. She was honored “for the creation and development of nanoshells – metal-coated nanoscale particles that can capture light energy – for use in many biomedical and chemical applications.”
A Rice faculty member since 1990, Dr. Halas currently holds the title of University Professor – the institution’s highest academic rank. In addition to her primary faculty appointment, she holds affiliations with the departments of biomedical engineering, chemistry, physics, and astronomy. She is the director of the Smalley Curl-Institute and director of the Laboratory for Nanophotonics.
As a scholar of optics and photonics, Dr. Halas aims to create new nanoscale objects that perform a function; to understand the physical properties of those objects, both at the microscopic and macroscopic level; and to incorporate them into unique applications of societal and technological impact. Her extensive research has contributed to the rise of the field of plasmonics. Outside of her work at Rice, she is the co-founder of two companies: Syzgy Plasmonics and Nanospectra Biosciences.
Dr. Halas is a graduate of La Salle University in Philadelphia, where she majored in chemistry. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in physics from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, as well as a second doctorate from La Salle University.