David Nelson (physicist)

David Nelson, 2001

David Robert Nelson (born May 9, 1951 in Stuttgart ) is an American physicist .

Nelson received the 1972 AB with summa cum laude at the Cornell University , Ithaca . In 1974 the MS followed and in 1975 the Ph.D. in physics. Since 1997 he has been a professor at Harvard University in Cambridge.

His research focus is condensed matter . Together with Bertrand Halperin , he developed the theory of displacement-mediated melting in two dimensions.

Awards

• 1987 Fellow of the American Physical Society
• 1988 member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 1994 member of the National Academy of Sciences
• 1995 Harvard Ledlie Prize from Harvard University
• 1993–1994 Guggenheim Fellowship of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation
• 1986 NAS Award for Initiatives in Research from the National Academy of Sciences
• 1984–1989 MacArthur Fellowship
• 1979–1983 Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Selected publications

• Nelson: Defects and Geometry in Condensed Matter Physics. Cambridge University Press 2002
• DR Nelson and BI Halperin: Dislocation-mediated melting in two dimensions. In: Physical Review B. Volume 19, 1979, p. 2457.
• DR Nelson: Order frustration and defects in liquids and glasses. In: Physical Review B. Volume 28, 1983, p. 5515.
• DR Nelson and L. Peliti: Fluctuations in membranes with crystalline and hexatic order. In: Journal de Physique. Volume 48, 1987, p. 1085.
• DR Nelson: Vortex entanglement in high temperature superconductors. In: Physical Review Letters. Volume 60, 1988, p. 1973.
• DR Nelson and V. Vinokur: Boson localization and correlated pinning of superconducting vortex arrays. In: Physical Review B. Volume 48, 1993, p. 13060.
• N. Hatano and DR Nelson: Vortex pinning and non-Hermitian quantum mechanics. In: Physical Review B. Volume 56, 1997, p. 8651.
• DR Nelson and N. Shnerb: Non-Hermitian localization and population biology. In: Physical Review E. Volume 58, 1998, p. 1383.
• D. Lubensky and DR Nelson: Single molecule statistics and the polynucleotide unzipping transition. In: Physical Review E. Volume 65, 2002, p. 03917.

Web links

Commons : David Robert Nelson  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• David R. Nelson . Harvard University. Retrieved October 5, 2009.
• DNA unzipping and motor proteins: Effect of the genetic code . LMU Munich. Retrieved October 5, 2009.