Nai Phuan Ong


Nai Phuan Ong is an American experimental physicist, specializing in "condensed matter physics focusing on topological insulators, Dirac/Weyl semimetals, superconductors and quantum spin liquids."

Biography

Ong immigrated to the United States with his family in 1967. He graduated in 1971 with B.A. from Columbia University and in 1976 with Ph.D., under the direction of Alan Portis, from the University of California, Berkeley. At the University of Southern California, Ong was an assistant professor from 1976 to 1982, an associate professor 1982 to 1984, and a full professor in 1985. At Princeton University he became in 1985 a full professor and in 2003 was appointed to the Eugene Higgins Professorship of Physics, which he continues to hold. Ong was a member of the editorial board of the journal Science from January 2012 to February 2014.
He has been the advisor for many doctoral students, including Harold Y. Hwang, and many post-docs, including Kathryn Moler.
In 1982 Ong married Delicia Lai.

Research

In the 1970s and 1980s Ong did important research on charge-density waves. After the discovery of high temperature superconductivity, Ong worked on transport phenomena in cuprate semiconductors. In recent years, Ong has done research on Dirac and Weyl semimetals, the thermal Hall effect, and topological superconductors.

Awards and honors