Gerald D. Mahan, distinguished professor of physics at Penn State University, has been honored with the 2015 Outstanding Achievement in Thermoelectrics Award from the International Thermoelectric Society (ITS). The award recognizes the outstanding achievements of a senior scientist for contributions to the field of thermoelectricity. Mahan is being recognized for his seminal contributions to the theoretical understanding of electronic and thermal transport in thermoelectric materials. The ITS award citation noted that Mahan's "numerous journal articles, conference proceedings papers, and books and book chapters have served as continuing inspiration for generations of researchers working in the field." The award was presented at the banquet of the 2015 International Conference on Thermoelectrics in Dresden, Germany, where Mahan presented a plenary lecture.
Mahan is a theoretical physicist with a specialty in condensed-matter physics. He has wide research interests in such topics as gases, liquids, and solids; abstract topics involving many-electron phenomena; and such practical devices as solid-state refrigerators.
Mahan was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005. He served a four-year term as a councellor of the American Physical Society beginning in 2002. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He has authored or coauthored more than 200 technical papers and several books, including one considered by many to be the essential reference for learning advanced techniques in solid-state theoretical physics, "Many-Particle Physics".
Prior to joining the Penn State faculty in 2001, Mahan held a joint appointment as a distinguished professor of physics at the University of Tennessee and as a distinguished scientist in the Solid State Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 1984 to 2001. Prior to that, he was a faculty member at Indiana University from 1973 to 1980, where he also was director of the Materials Research Laboratory in 1983 and 1984. He was on the faculty at the University of Oregon from 1967 to 1973, and was a research physicist at the General Electric Corporate Research and Development Center from 1964 to 1967. Mahan earned his doctoral degree in theoretical physics at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964 and his bachelor's degree in physics at Harvard University in 1959.