Schmittmann

Blacksburg, Va., December 20, 2004 -- Beate Schmittmann, of Blacksburg, professor of physics at Virginia Tech, has been elected a Fellow in the American Physical Society (APS), the major professional organization for physicists in both industry and academia in the United States.

Election to an APS Fellowship is a competitive process in which only about .5 percent of the current APS membership is elected to a fellowship. "Election to APS Fellowship is recognition by your peers of your outstanding contributions to physics," according to a letter to Schmittmann from APS. Schmittmann is being honored "for seminal and sustained research on fundamental and applied problems in non-equilibrium statistical physics, in particular driven diffusive systems," according to the citation that accompanies the election.

Schmittman's research focuses on the statistical mechanics of complex systems. This area of physics builds the bridges between the properties of physical systems on macroscopic, or every-day, scales and the underlying interactions and symmetries at the atomic or molecular level. Schmittmann is particularly interested in the fundamental principles governing open systems, which constantly exchange energy or matter with their environment. Ideas and techniques from this work are relevant to a wide range of problems, including those with living cells to those involving highway traffic. She has received research funding from the National Science Foundation, NATO, the Jeffress Foundation, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

Her teaching interests span the whole spectrum of student backgrounds, from advanced graduate courses to a general-interest course on contemporary issues and concepts in modern physics for all majors. Schmittmann also is strongly committed to mentoring students and post-doctoral associates, especially women, as they progress towards faculty careers. She serves as Advance Professor on the leadership team of the Virginia Tech Advance Program, a NSF-funded effort to enhance the academic careers of women in science and engineering.

Schmittmann holds a physics diploma from RWTH Aachen in Germany and her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Edinburgh, U.K. She came to Virginia Tech in 1990 as a visiting assistant professor of physics and was promoted to associate professor in 1991 and professor in 1997.

She has earned numerous awards and honors, including a fellowship from the Hungarian Ministry of Science, a postdoctoral travel award from DFG, a postgraduate scholarship award to Edinburgh University, a postgraduate study award from the German National Scholarship Foundation (GNSF), a foreign-study award from GNSF and membership in GNSF, which supports up to 1 percent of German undergraduates.

Schmittmann has published widely in professional publications and has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Statistical Physics. She now serves on the board of the Physical Review E. She also has served as referee for a wide range of international journals and funding agencies.

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