The Harry Suhl Distinguished lectureship honors the memory of our late colleague Harry Suhl, whose pioneering contributions to condensed matter physics left a lasting mark on our field. Harry Suhl was a founding faculty member at the University of California, San Diego and in the Department of Physics. 

Harry Suhl was as well known for his conviviality as he was for the several groundbreaking contributions to condensed matter physics that now bear his name, including this Distinguished Lecture Series in the Department of Physics at UC San Diego. His colleagues, Daniel Arovas, M. Brian Maple, and Pradeep Kumar wrote about his storied life, career, and many achievements in Physics Today.

“Above all, don’t get wiser as you get older. If you do, you will become too inhibited to try the impossible, and one can achieve the limits of the possible only by occasionally venturing beyond them. The famous proverb should really be transposed: Angels rush in where fools fear to tread.”

    - Harry Suhl

Harry Suhl Distinguished Lectureships​​​​​

The Dashen Distinguished Lectureship was established thanks to the generosity of Roger's late wife, Mary. This lectureship was established to recognize leaders in basic and applied physics across academia, government, and industry and to bring their insights to our campus community. During it's first decade, the Dashen Lecture has established a proud tradition of hosting some of the most influential physicists of our time.

An excerpt from the Biographical Memoir from the National Academy of Sciences on Roger Dashen:

"Roger Dashen was a profoundly insightful theoretical physicist who made major contributions to our modern understanding of how the phenomena of particle physics emerge from the mathematics of quantum field theory. He was also deeply interested in applied physics and made innovative contributions to acoustics, wave propagation  in random media, and oceanography. His intellectual generosity and broad interest in physics made him an exceptional mentor of young theorists and, later in his career, a wise and effective institution builder. He was, more than anything else, a theoretical physics natural— gifted with an uncanny ability to quickly grasp the  essence of complex physical problems and to create, seemingly effortlessly, effective mathematical realizations of his insights."

Roger Dashen Distinguished Lectureships​​​​​

The Physics Department Memorial Lectureship Series was established through the founding gift given by family and friends of Dr. Norman Kroll. This distinguished series was established to bring highly acclaimed scientists and researchers across the broad range of physics to share their insights with our campus community. The Memorial Lectureship has a proud history of hosting some of the most respected figures in our field. The Memorial Lectureship has a proud history of hosting some of the most respected figures in our field.

Dr. Norman Kroll is known for his famous paper "On the Self'Energy of a Bound Electron"– published with his mentor, Nobel laureate Willis Lamb– which provided the first theoretical explanation of the Lamb shift in Quantum Electrodynamics. It became one of the most important landmarks in the field.

UCSD recruited Dr. Kroll to become a founding member of the Department of Physics. While at UCSD, he continued his contributions to particle physics, the department, campus community (he advised UCSD's chamber music series!) and beyond. His colleagues and friends, Marvin Goldberger and Julius Kuti, wrote about his career and impact for Physics Today.

Memorial Distinguished Lectureships​​​​​