Robert Schrieffer

John Robert Schrieffer, born May 31, 1931,shared a Nobel Prize in physics with John Bardeen and Leon Cooper in 1972 for his work on the BCS theory – a theory that explains the workings of superconductivity, the state in which certain extremely cold metals conduct electricity with no resistance.

Schrieffer began his college career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1949, and studied electrical engineering before switching to physics. He earned his graduate degree in physics from the University of Illinois in the 1950s where his research advisor was John Bardeen. His work on the theory of superconductivity with Bardeen and Cooper constituted his doctoral dissertation. He has held posts at the University of Illinois, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and most recently at Florida State University where he focused on achieving room temperature superconductivity.

Additional Resources:

The Nobel Prize biography
The Wikipedia biography