Norbert F. Scherer has been selected as the 2022 recipient of the C.E.K. Mees Medal. Scherer is honored for seminal contributions to optical science by developing novel methods and applications in ultrafast nonlinear spectroscopy, single molecule microscopy, nanoplasmonics, optical vector beam spectroscopy; and optical trapping, optical matter and nano-machines.
“I am honored and very surprised to receive this award; the latter because I had forgotten that I had been nominated by Andrei Tokmakoff (former Chair of Chemistry) just before the Cov-Sars-2 pandemic began. I’ve had a lifelong fascination with light – starting with an interest in astronomy even before the maned moon landings in the 1960’s – and later as an undergraduate at Chicago struggling with a crummy laser in the undergraduate Physical Chemistry lab, seeing “real lasers” in Graham Fleming’s (former Professor of Chemistry) lab, and working with them in Stuart Rice’s (Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus) lab. These experiences got me directed toward Ahmed Zewail’s lab at Caltech, and my obsession with optics, photonics and light has been of constant interest ever since. The Mees Medal and its focus on “original use of optics across multiple fields” struck Andrei as very appropriate match to my polymath career adventures.”
Scherer earned his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. Scherer joined the University of Chicago in 1997 and is currently a Professor in the Department of Chemistry, the James Franck Institute and the Institute for Biophysical Dynamics.
Currently, Scherer explores new frontiers in several areas: formation and “non-reciprocal” dynamics of nonequilibrium optical matter; optical magnetism and novel collective excitations of (nanoplasmonic-based) meta-atoms and meta-materials; optical magnetic forces and trapping; and connecting transport in single and multicellular biological systems to function, particularly in relation to diabetes. The research is problem-oriented but involves a wide range of experimental (mostly optical) and simulation methods. Depending on the system and problem, the research ususally involves development of new methods, including: advances in ultrafast lasers and nonlinear spectroscopy; pointillist, nonlinear and 4D microscopy; approaches for 3D image analysis; and coupled electrodynamics and Langevin dynamics simulations. Each experimental project has a corresponding theory/simulation complement done either within the group or through collaborations with colleagues at Chicago, Northwestern University, and Argonne National Lab.
Scherer is the recipient of multiple awards, including: the Peter Debye Prize from the Edmund Hustinx Foundation, Maastricht Netherlands; a Department of Defense Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship; a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship; an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship; a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award; a David and Lucile Packard Fellowship, and was a National Scince Foundation National Young Investigator. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and the American Physical Society.
The Mees Medal recognizes an original use of optics across multiple fields. It honors the memory of C.E.K Mees who contributed preeminently to the development of scientific photography, and was a charter member of OSA. The medal was endowed by the Mees family.