Jeffrey Collett, a physicist specializing in phase transitions of liquid crystals and complex fluids, joined the Lawrence faculty in 1995 and was promoted to the rank of associate professor of physics this past year.
His current research focuses on the novel kinds of order found in new liquid crystalline compounds with unusual shapes. Measurements done in his research lab at Lawrence are used to explore the relationship between the structure of the individual molecule and the large-scale order in partially ordered phases of the material. This work has been supported by grants from Research Corporation, the Petroleum Research Fund, and the Exxon Education Foundation.
In 2000-2001, Collett published "Structural Study of the Smectic-I to Smectic-F Transition in Freely Suspended Liquid Crystal Films" in Physical Review E. His co-authors included Paul T. Kondratko, '00, now a graduate student at Harvard University, and Mary E. Neubert of the Liquid Crystal Institute at Kent State University.
Collett earned his bachelor's degree magna cum laude in physics and mathematics at St. Olaf College and the master's degree and doctorate at Harvard University. He did postgraduate work at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Laboratory in Yorktown Heights, New York, working on the development of X-ray scattering techniques. From 1984 to 1992 he was an engineer in the IBM Application Business Systems division in Rochester, Minnesota, where he received an Outstanding Technical Achievement Award.
Before coming to Lawrence, he taught at St. Norbert College and St. Cloud State University, and in 1999 he was a visiting scholar in the physics department of the University of Washington. He currently chairs the physics and astronomy division of the Council on Undergraduate Research, a national organization that offers programs to assist the research efforts of faculty members and students in undergraduate institutions, especially faculty-student collaborative research in science, mathematics, and engineering.