About William E. Moerner
William Esco Moerner, also known as W. E. Moerner, (born June 24, 1953) is an American physical chemist and chemical physicist with current work in the biophysics and imaging of single molecules. He is credited with achieving the first optical detection and spectroscopy of a single molecule in condensed phases, along with his postdoc, Lothar Kador. Optical study of single molecules has subsequently become a widely used single-molecule experiment in chemistry, physics and biology. In 2014, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. == Early life and education == Moerner was born in Pleasanton, California on June 24, 1953, the son of Bertha Frances (Robinson) and William Alfred Moerner. He attended Washington University in St. Louis for undergraduate studies as an Alexander S. Langsdorf Engineering Fellow, and obtained three degrees: a B.S. in physics, a B.S. in electrical engineering, and an A.B. in mathematics in 1975. He then pursued graduate study, partially supported by a National Science Foundation, at Cornell University in the group of Albert J. Sievers III. Here he received an M.S. degree and a Ph.D. degree in physics in 1978 and 1982, respectively. His doctoral thesis was on vibrational relaxation dynamics of an IR-laser-excited molecular impurity mode in alkali halide lattices. == Career == Moerner worked at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, as a research staff member from 1981 to 1988, a manager from 1988 to 1989, and project leader from 1989 to 1995.
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