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201 South College
The University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996-1200
Phone: (865) 974-3055
Fax: (865) 974-3895
eplummer@utk.edu |
E. Ward Plummer is a Distinguished Professor of Physics at The University of Tennessee and a Distinguished Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Lewis and Clark College in 1962 and completed his Ph.D. degree in physics at Cornell University in 1967, working with Prof. Thor Rhodin. His thesis work on atomic binding of 5-d transition-metal atoms using FIM led to him receiving the Wayne Nottingham Prize at the Annual Physical Electronics Conference of the American Physical Society in March 1968. [Photo]
Plummer accepted a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Bureau of Standards [now called The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)] in the fall of 1967 working with Russ Young, and he stayed as a staff scientist until the fall of 1973. His work included field emission and photoemission studies of surfaces. NIST selected his 1969 paper "Resonance Tunneling of Field-Emitted Electrons Through Adsorbates on Metal Surfaces," co-authored with J. W. Gadzuk and R. D. Young, for inclusion in the agency's centennial collection of its top 100 articles of the 20th century. This paper reported the first-ever single electron spectroscopy work in which electronic energy levels of atoms at the surface of a metal were observed. [Photo]
In 1973, Plummer accepted a position in the Physics Department at the University of Pennsylvania where his work mainly focused on angle-resolved photoemission, momentum-resolved inelastic electron scattering and nonlinear optical response from surfaces. In March1983, he was awarded the Davisson-Germer Prize by the American Physical Society for "---the innovative application of electron spectroscopies." In 1988, he was appointed the William Smith Professor of Physics and in 1990 became the director of the NSF-funded Materials Research Laboratory (Laboratory for Research on Structure of Matter). [Photo]
In January 1993, Plummer moved to his present joint position at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His research interests have shifted to the study on an atomic scale of phase transitions in reduced dimensionality and surfaces of highly correlated electron systems such as transition-metal oxides. His primary research tool has been variable-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy. In October 2001, he was awarded the Medard W. Welch Award by the American Vacuum Society (AVS) for his research over the last 10 years. The citation reads, "For the development of novel instrumentation, its use to illuminate new concepts in the surface physics of metals, and the mentoring of promising young scientists." The Welch Award was established in 1969 to commemorate the pioneering efforts of M. W. Welch in founding and supporting the AVS. Recipients receive a cash award, certificate, and gold medal. In 2000, Plummer became the Director of the Tennessee Advanced Materials Laboratory (TAML), a state-funded Center of Excellence. TAML has since evolved into the Joint Institute for Advanced Materials (JIAM), a multi-million dollar center with state and federal support that will be the first center on the University of Tennessee Cherokee Farms research campus. Plummer is the director of JIAM. In 2006 he was named the Guangbiao Jianzuo Professor of Physics at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, and in 2007 he won the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Lewis and Clark College. [Photo]
Plummer has served on many national and international committees both to review existing scientific programs and to identify future directions for science and technology. Recent examples include: Chair of DOE-sponsored Workshop on "Soft X-Ray Science in the Next Millennium: The Future of Photon-In/Photon-Out Experiments, Pikeville, Tennessee, March 15-18, 2000, and Chair of DOE-BESAC (Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee) subpanel for the evaluation of the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source (IPNS) at Argonne National Laboratory and the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) Manuel Lujan Jr. Neutron Scattering Center. He also recently became a member of the DOE-Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee, 2001-2004.
He is author of >300 refereed papers and is included in the list of the 1,000 Most Cited Physicists, a list compiled by the Institute for Scientific Information which is based on papers published between 1981 and 1997. In April 2006, Plummer was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences (NAS), one of the highest honors bestowed upon an American scientist.
But what Plummer is proudest of in his long and distinguished career is the mentoring of promising young scientists. To date, this includes advising or co-advising Ph.D. theses of 40 graduate students, hosting ~25 postdoctoral fellows, and assisting many young scientists in advancing their careers.
[Photo]
In 2007 Plummer was the first faculty member to volunteer to host exceptionally talented high school students in the new “UT Precollegiate Research Scholars Program aimed at bridging our college and the community. [Photo]
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