Robert Birgeneau, Ph.D.

An executive officer from a California University
Appointed by the Lt. Governor

An internationally distinguished physicist, Robert Birgeneau, Ph.D., is chancellor of UC Berkeley. Birgeneau’s research focuses on understanding the fundamental properties of materials beginning at the level of a single atom and building up to macroscopic dimensions. His work has earned him numerous citations and awards, including the O.E. Buckley Prize of the American Physical Society and the H.E. Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society.

A Toronto native and the first in his family to finish high school, Birgeneau received his B.Sc. in mathematics from the University of Toronto in 1963 and his Ph.D. in physics from Yale University in 1966. He served on the faculty of Yale for one year and then spent one year at Oxford University. He was a member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories from 1968 to 1975 and then joined MIT as a professor of physics, spending 25 years on the faculty there. He was named head of the physics department in 1988 and in 1991 was appointed dean of science. He became the 14th president of the
University of Toronto on July 1, 2000.

Birgeneau has been elected a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences, has received numerous awards for teaching and research, and is one of the most highly cited physicists in the world. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 2001 and the Royal Society of Canada in 2002. A leader on gender issues within higher education, Birgeneau is well known for his commitment to diversity and equity in the academic community.