About Dan Shechtman
Dan Shechtman (Hebrew: דן שכטמן; born January 24, 1941) is an Israeli chemist, the Philip Tobias Professor of Materials Science at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, an Associate of the US Department of Energy's Ames National Laboratory, and Professor of Materials Science at Iowa State University. On April 8, 1982, while on sabbatical at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C., Shechtman discovered the icosahedral phase, which opened the new field of quasiperiodic crystals, also referred to as "quasicrystals." For this discovery, he was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, making him one of six Israelis who have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His grandparents had immigrated to Palestine during the Second Aliyah (1904–1914) and founded a printing house. During this study he discovered the icosahedral phase which opened the new field of quasiperiodic crystals. In the elections, held on June 10, 2014, he was awarded only one vote. The Nobel prize was 10 million Swedish krona (approximately US$1.5 million).
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.