Short Bio
Jim Merz received the B.S. degree in Physics from the University of Notre Dame in 1959. He attended the University of Göttingen, Germany, as a Fulbright Fellow in 1959-60. He then attended Harvard University as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and a Danforth Fellow, receiving the M.A. degree in 1961 and the Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics in 1967. He joined basic research at Bell Laboratories in 1966, where he investigated the optical properties of compound semiconductors. In 1978 he joined the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), as a Professor of Electrical Engineering, where he served in several administrative positions. He moved to the University of Notre Dame as Frank M. Freimann Professor of Electrical Engineering in 1994. At Notre Dame he served as Vice President for Graduate Studies and Research and Dean of the Graduate School from 1996 to 2001. He was appointed Concurrent Professor of Physics in 2001, and Interim Dean of the College of Engineering, August 2006-January 2008.
Jim was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Linköping University, Sweden, in 1993. He was awarded the IEEE Third Millennium Medal in 2000, and received an Alexander von Humboldt Award to carry out research at the Paul Drude Institute for Solid State Electronics in Berlin, Germany in 2002. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the Materials Research Society (MRS).
He and his wife Rose-Marie have four children and eight grandchildren. Their interests include swimming on Cape Cod and Maui, skiing in Utah, scuba diving, travel, photography, reading, music, art, Notre Dame football, and each other.
Jim Merz in the Octopus-Optics Lab
