Rachel A. Segalman, the Edward Noble Kramer Professor and chair of the department of chemical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, received the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award in Chemical Engineering, the highest honor for mid-career scientists given by the U.S. Department of Energy. The award was established in 1959 in honor of a scientist who was the inventor of the cyclotron, an accelerator of subatomic particles. He won the 1939 Nobel Prize in physics for that achievement.
Dr. Segalman was honored by the Energy Department “for significant fundamental materials science and engineering contributions to self-assembly and structure-property relationships in functional polymer systems, with specific applications to photovoltaic, thermoelectric, and membrane technologies.”
Professor Segalman also received the Andreas Acrivos Award for Professional Progress in Chemical Engineering from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. The institute stated that it was honoring Professor Segalman “for pioneering studies of functional soft materials including semiconducting block polymers, polymeric ionic liquids, and hybrid thermoelectric materials.”
“While the Lawrence Award is special because of its stature in the U.S. government,” Dr. Segalman said, “the Acrivos Professional Progress is a recognition from my peers.”
Professor Segalman joined the faculty at the university in 2014. Previously, she served on the chemical engineering faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. There, she also was the acting director of the Material Science Division of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories.
Professor Segalman is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Barbara.