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Udo D. Schwarz

Professional Title: 
Department Chair & Professor, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, Yale University
Bio: 
Udo D. Schwarz graduated in 1989 from the University of Basel, Switzerland, receiving his Ph.D. in physics from the same institution in 1993. Subsequently, he continued his work as a staff scientist and lecturer at the Institute of Applied Physics of the University of Hamburg, Germany. In 2001, Prof. Schwarz moved to the Materials Science Department of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California. Since 2002, he works at Yale’s Mechanical Engineering Department, where he got promoted to full professor in 2009 and serves as department chair since 2012. His research interests concern the local measurement of atomic-scale interactions and properties by applying scanning probe microscopy techniques and other local probe techniques such as nanoindentation to study problems in surface physics, catalysis, friction, elastic deformation, and plastic flow, as well as the study of local mechanical, chemical and electronic properties of novel materials such as metallic glasses or two-dimensional materials. In addition, Prof. Schwarz is also interested in nanoimprint techniques and the nanostructuring of surfaces as well as the high-throughput discovery of novel materials.