Luz Martínez-Miranda (1956-2026)
Professor
Arriving at the Clark School in 1995, Martínez-Miranda was an internationally recognized physicist in liquid crystals and liquid crystal-nanoparticle composites, their applications in magnetic resonance imaging and in photovoltaics, and their characterization using X-ray scattering techniques. She was a prolific author, with over 90 journal publications, and wrote a book titled “Liquid Crystals in Photovoltaics: An Introduction.” The third and first female president of the National Society of Hispanic Physicists, Martínez-Miranda was elected fellow of the American Society for the Advancement of Science in 2004 and the American Physical Society in 2007. To learn more about the late Martínez-Miranda, read her faculty profile.
Alexander L. Roytburd (1933-2024)
Professor Emeritus
Arriving at the Clark School in 1988, Roytburd was a classic and influential paper-and-pencil theorist. His mastery of phenomenological models of functional materials enabled him to distill complex concepts, such as ferroelasticity, into simple and easy-to-understand equations and diagrams, allowing both researchers and students to benefit from his deep-rooted materials insights. At a time when supercomputers are often used for generating theoretical results, his work was always a breath of fresh air. He was particularly well known for his theory of elastic domains that explained structural phenomena and properties in bulk and thin-film materials. To learn more about the late Roytburd, read his faculty profile.
Manfred Wuttig (1933-2023)
Professor Emeritus
An early pioneer in the materials science field and inaugural chair of the department, Wuttig rose to prominence after publishing one of the first studies on the ferromagnetic shape memory effect, which has been cited over 900 times. His work, titled “Magnetostriction of Martensite," was released in 1998 in collaboration with University of Minnesota’s Richard D. James, a distinguished professor and director of the Minnesota Space Grant Consortium. Wuttig was also an international expert in ferromagnetic, ferroelectric and ferroelastic materials, reversible phase transformations, multiferroics, magnetoelectrics and nanomagnetism. To learn more about the late Wuttig, read his faculty profile.
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