Brookhaven Lab physicist earns national honor

J.C. Séamus Davis, a senior physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, an organization of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research.

Election to the academy, which is by nomination only, is considered one of the highest honors that can be bestowed on a scientist. Davis, an Ithaca resident who also teaches physics at Cornell University, said he was surprised by the honor.

"I am amazed and delighted," Davis said in a statement Tuesday. "I had never considered such an honor."

Davis, who serves as director of the Center for Emergent Superconductivity at Brookhaven Lab, is among 72 new members and 18 foreign associates recognized this year for "their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research."

He specializes in superconductor, superfluid and supersolid research. Superconductors are synthetic materials through which electricity flows with zero resistance, mostly near absolute zero (minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit). They operate extremely fast and produce virtually no heat. Superfluids and supersolids have similar unusual properties.