Weiss Named Editor of New Journal and Fellow of American Vacuum Society

Paul Weiss, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry andPhysics, has been selected by the American Chemical Society (ACS)Publications Division to serve as the editor of a new peer-reviewed journal, ACS Nano. The journal publishes scientific papers, reviews, and editorial features on nanoscience and nanotechnology. Weiss also has been named a fellow of the American Vacuum Society (AVS), which promotes research, networking, and education regarding the application of vacuum and other controlled environments to science and technology. According to the society, Weiss was selected as a Fellow in honor of his "enabling and exploiting novel views of the atomic-scale world in the understanding and development of functional nanoscale assemblies."

Weiss's research program explores the properties of matter at the atomic scale. This work includes studies of catalysis, molecular electronics, molecular motors, self-assembly, nanofabrication, and control of molecules on surfaces and in lipid bilayers. He has developed a number of techniques for measuring chemical, physical, and electronic properties at the atomic scale and for manipulating atoms in thin layers. These techniques have applications in nanoscale technology for electronics, storage, and motors and in the understanding and control of biological membranes, such as cell walls.

Weiss was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2000, of the American Physical Society in 2003, and of the American Vacuum Society in 2008. His academic honors include being selected as a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1997 and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2000. He also received the American Chemical Society Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry in 1996, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship in 1995, and the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1991. In 2004, he received an Excellence in Honors Teaching Award from Penn State's Schreyer Honors College.

Weiss joined the Penn State faculty in 1989 as an assistant professor of chemistry, was named associate professor of chemistry in 1995, professor of chemistry in 2001, professor of physics in 2002, and Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Physics in 2006. He served as associate director of the Center for Nanoscale Science from 2002 to 2005.