Prof. Miquel Salmerón awarded the LBNL Shirley Award for his research on surface science

by Virginia Greco

Prof. Miquel Salmerón, a senior staff at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and UC Berkeley and the President of the ICN2 Scientific Advisory Board, has been awarded the 2020 David A. Shirley Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement at the LBNL Advanced Light Source (ALS).

The 2020 David A. Shirley Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) Advanced Light Source (ALS) is being conferred to Prof. Miquel Salmerón, in recognition of the deep impact of his research on surface science. Prof. Salmerón, who received his B.A. in Physics from the University of Barcelona and his Ph.D. from the University Autonoma of Madrid (Spain), is now a Principal Investigator at LBNL and Adjunct Professor at UC Berkeley Materials Science and Engineering Department. He is also the President of the ICN2 Scientific Advisory Board.

Prof. Salmerón is currently one of the most influential surface scientists, who contributed to this field with fundamental studies on atomic scale structure and properties of surfaces and nanomaterials for applications in electronics, catalysis, tribology and environmental science. He has also developed novel and groundbreaking scientific instrumentation, including High Pressure Scanning Tunneling Microscopy for catalysis studies, Scanning Polarisation Force Microscopy for studies of liquid films and Ambient Pressure Photoelectron Spectroscopy for environmental and catalysis studies.

More details on Prof. Salmerón’s outstanding career and research can be learnt from the interview with him published on the ALS website and by following the plenary talk he will give at the next ALS User Meeting. This year, the Shirley Award talk is scheduled for Tuesday, August 25, at 10:30 a.m (PDT). Because the meeting will be held online, attendance is free and open to all who register.

The Shirley Award is named after David Shirley, a Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley and Director of Berkeley Lab from 1980 to 1989, whose vision was instrumental in building the ALS.

Photo: Prof Miquel Salmerón at the ALS Beamline 11.0.2 with the APXPS system in 2005. [Credits: ALS/LBNL]