Chandra M. Varma

Doctor of Science

College of Science and Engineering, April 22, 2010

Chandra M. Varma received a Ph.D. in physics and astronomy from the University of Minnesota in 1968. After finishing his degree, he joined Bell Laboratories where he had a long and distinguished career for more than 40 years. His research has had a profound impact on the understanding of the theory of high temperature superconductors, which is considered to be one of the grand challenges in condensed matter physics. He has also made significant impacts on other areas of condensed matter theory including mixed valence compounds and the mechanism for superconductivity in Fullerenes. In 2003, he was appointed to the position of Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of California at Riverside. He has published more than 190 papers that have had a very large number of citations. Perhaps one of his most famous papers (which is nearly twenty-years old) on the phenomenology of the normal state of high-temperature superconductor is believed to be the key to the understanding of the phenomenon. His work continues to be at the center of important debates in the field today. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society and the Third World Academy of Sciences. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Service Award for Sustained Achievement at Bell Laboratories.