Paul A. Fleury

Paul Fleury, B.S. and M.S. John Carroll University, Ph.D. MIT, the Frederick William Beinecke Professor Emeritus of Engineeering and Applied Physics and of Physics, has been a Yale faculty member since 2000. Trained by the legendary physicist Charles Townes, Professor Fleury was among the first physicists to use the newly invented laser to do fundamental science. His research interest has been in the microscopic origin of physical phenomena in condensed matter systems with emphasis on collective behaviors underlying magnetic, optical, electronic, acoustic, and structural properties of materials. 

At Bell Laboratories starting in 1965, he applied his expertise in light scattering from solids to uncover their inner workings in a series of groundbreaking experiments into the quantum vibrational and magnetic properties of solids, detecting and studying the subtle clues that signal the onset of a change of the phases of matter. He was recognized with the 1992 Frank Isakson Prize of the American Physical Society, for advancing the understanding of optical effects in solids, and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1999.

At Bell Labs he was appointed as head of condensed state research and then as director of the Materials Research Laboratory, where he oversaw a critical technical innovation—the perfecting of the production of optical fiber—supervising a project that ultimately provided the optical fiber to the entire Bell system and contributing greatly to a transformational technology of the information age. In the early ’80s he switched roles to become head of the Physical Research Laboratory at Bell, overseeing the growth of biophysical research and the early days of quantum optics in solids, which set the foundations for the current explosion in that field. He was appointed as vice president for research at Sandia National Laboratories, where he supervised an enormous research establishment and guided projects of major national significance for defense science.

In 2000 Professor Fleury joined Yale as dean of Engineering and Applied Science. He was centrally involved in recruiting faculty, turning the nascent program in biomedical engineering into a full-fledged department with strong links to the School of Medicine, and expediting the growth of the environmental engineering program to its current high visibility. He was deeply involved in the design of the new Malone Engineering Center and also in the successful effort to bring a National Science Foundation Materials Research Center to Yale for the first time, and in setting up the Yale Institute for Nanoscience and Quantum Engineering (YINQE).