Dr. Stephen Robert Leone stands as a preeminent figure in the field of physical chemistry, renowned for his pioneering contributions to ultrafast laser science. He is Professor of Chemistry and Physics at the University of California, Berkeley since 2002, and currently holds the John R. Thomas Endowed Chair in Physical Chemistry. He also serves as a Faculty Principal Investigator at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and is affiliated with the Physics Department. Born in Queens, New York City in 1948, he earned his B.A. in Chemistry from Northwestern University in 1970 before completing his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at UC Berkeley in 1974 under Professor C. Bradley Moore. His distinguished career began at the University of Southern California, continued with significant contributions at the University of Colorado where he became a full professor in 1982, and culminated with his return to Berkeley in 2002 where he has led transformative research for two decades.
Professor Leone's groundbreaking research has fundamentally advanced the field of ultrafast science through his innovative development and application of attosecond laser techniques to probe atomic and molecular dynamics. His laboratory has pioneered the use of soft X-ray and extreme ultraviolet (XUV) light to investigate electron dynamics with unprecedented temporal resolution, enabling the observation of charge migration in molecules and semiconductor band gap dynamics on their natural timescales. His work has provided revolutionary insights into molecular photodissociation, insulator to metal transitions, and transition states of dissociating molecules through the application of tabletop high harmonic generation sources. These methodological innovations have established new paradigms for understanding coherent electron and nuclear motion, resolving electronic and vibrational dynamics with extraordinary state selectivity at the attosecond frontier of time-resolved science.
As a highly influential figure in the scientific community, Dr. Leone has received numerous prestigious honors including election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000, alongside the Peter Debye Award and Irving Langmuir Prize in Chemical Physics. His leadership extends beyond the laboratory as he served as editor of the Annual Review of Physical Chemistry from 2002 to 2011 and directed the Chemical Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory from 2010 to 2012. Current research in his laboratory continues to push the boundaries of time-resolved science with projects focused on attosecond laser pulse production, electron dynamics in novel materials, and nanoparticle and atmospheric aerosol dynamics. Dr. Leone's ongoing work promises to further illuminate the fundamental quantum mechanical processes that govern chemical transformations, maintaining his position at the forefront of physical chemistry research for the next generation of scientific discovery.
