Erwin Louis Hahn
Honorary Degree Recipient
- Doctor of Science, Purdue University 1975
After obtaining a bachelors degree from Juniata College in 1943, Professor Erwin Louis Hahn worked as an assistant in the Purdue Physics Department for 1943-44. He went on to the graduate program at the University of Illinois, from which he received his Ph.D. in 1949 and continued as a Research Associate until 1950. Since then, he has occupied various positions at Stanford University and IBM until 1955 when he moved to the University of California, Berkeley as Assistant Professor. He rose through the ranks and became a full Professor in 1961.
Professor Hahn has made pioneering contributions in the areas of electron, molecular, solid state, and laser physics as well as electronic instrumentation. In particular, his work in nuclear and electron spin magnetic resonance and in the nuclear spin coupling in molecules and solids is widely appreciated.
He received the Buckley Prize of the American Physical Society in 1971, is a foreign member of the Royal Institute of Great Britain, and of the National Academy of Science.