Rate My Professor George C. Schatz

George C. Schatz is the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry and of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University. He received his B.S. in Chemistry from Clarkson University in 1971 and Ph.D. in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1976, followed by a research associateship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1975 to 1976. Schatz has been on the faculty at Northwestern University since 1976, starting as Assistant Professor of Chemistry, advancing to Associate Professor in 1980 and Professor in 1982. He held the Dow Professorship from 1994 to 1996 and the Morrison Professorship since 2002, in addition to appointments as Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering since 2009 and Professor of Applied Physics since 2012.

Schatz's research employs theory and computation to address problems in nanotechnology, materials properties, macromolecular structures and dynamics, molecular self-assembly, optics, plasma science, materials physics, and biophysics, with particular emphasis on optical properties of metal nanoparticles and aggregates, including applications in extinction, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, plasmon-driven photocatalysis, and quantum science involving entangled photons. He has published over 1,000 papers and three books, including recent works such as "Role of supramolecular polymers in photo-actuation of spiropyran hydrogels" (Chemical Science, 2023), "Excited state nonadiabatic molecular dynamics of hot electron addition to water clusters in the ultrafast femtosecond regime" (J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 2023), "Chemomechanical modification of quantum emission in monolayer WSe2" (Nature Communications, 2023), and "Mechanical nanolattices printed using nanocluster-based photoresists" (Science, 2022). Schatz served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Physical Chemistry from 2005 to 2019 and has held numerous editorial roles. His contributions have earned him election to the National Academy of Sciences (2005), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2002), and International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science (2001), along with fellowships from the American Physical Society (1987), American Association for the Advancement of Science (1999), American Chemical Society (2009), and Royal Society of Chemistry (2013). Major awards include the Peter Debye Award (2010), Hirschfelder Prize (2014), Ahmed Zewail Prize (2019), Max Planck Research Award (1993), and Bourke Medal (2007).