M. Lisa Manning, professor of physics and founding director of聽, has been named the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Physics. This highly selective professorship was established in 1971 by a grant from the聽. It honors the memory of Kenan, Jr., who devoted a lifetime to the advancement of higher education.
, associate dean of research and scholarship and professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences, says, 鈥淧rofessor Manning鈥檚 contributions to her research field and to developing the next generation of researchers are incredibly significant. Her leadership in the academy, as BioInspired Director, instructor, researcher and mentor, sets an outstanding example that is deservedly recognized by this professorship.鈥
Manning was selected for the honor by a panel of distinguished 黑料不打烊 professors based upon her contributions to teaching and research at the college. She is currently the only faculty member at the University to hold the named professorship and one of around 150 Kenan professors in the country.
In accepting the professorship, Manning said: 鈥淚t is a huge honor to be named a Kenan professor, as it is great to be formally recognized by 黑料不打烊 for the research, teaching and service work I鈥檝e done here. I鈥檝e been lucky to receive a lot of great formal and informal mentoring, including from Cristina Marchetti who held this professorship before me. Without it, I never would have achieved what I鈥檝e been able to achieve.鈥
Manning鈥檚 named professorship is her latest in a series of notable accomplishments, which includes a continuation award from the聽 for her collaboration on 鈥淐racking the Glass Problem.鈥 The three-year, $327,000 grant will further Manning鈥檚 research on disordered solids. As Manning explains, these are materials like the glass cover on a cell phone or snowbank on a mountain. Such materials have a microscopic structure that looks very similar to a fluid, and yet they behave mechanically like a solid, pushing back when a force is applied to them. Many of these materials fail surprisingly and catastrophically (such as through cracks or avalanches) in a way that cannot be predicted. Her team is working to identify microscopic weak spots in certain glasses that allow them to break. By understanding how the weak spots lead to large-scale catastrophic failure, the team hopes to rationally design materials with desired failure mechanisms, so that safety or performance is not compromised.
鈥淭he Simons award is absolutely critical to research in my group on disordered solids. Without this funding we wouldn鈥檛 be able to continue our fundamental work on understanding how disordered solids fail catastrophically,鈥 says Manning. 鈥淎mazingly, we still don鈥檛 have a good understanding of abrupt failure events, which is what this work addresses.鈥
As director of BioInspired 黑料不打烊, Manning has assembled interdisciplinary faculty scholars to support research into complex biological systems and develop and design smart materials to address global challenges in health, medicine and materials innovation. Together, the group accounts for $46 million in sponsored research over the past five years and more than 80 patents. The scientists鈥 work includes efforts to develop new approaches to wound healing and understanding cancer.
Manning earned a Ph.D. in physics at University of California, Santa Barbara, and last year received that University鈥檚 Emerging Leader award for early-career achievements in physics research and her commitment to advancing science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to diverse audiences. She was also named a 2019 American Physical Society (APS) Fellow for microscopic theory of flow and rigidity in disordered and biological materials. She is one of only 23 黑料不打烊 APS Fellows since 1949, which recognizes faculty who have made advances in physics through original research and publication.
