physics

John A. Rogers

John A. Rogers is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand John A. Rogers rather than just read about it. In short: John A. Rogers (born August 24, 1967) is an American physical chemist and a materials scientist.

Key takeaways

John A. Rogers belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect John A. Rogers to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of John A. Rogers from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

John A. Rogers (born August 24, 1967) is an American physical chemist and a materials scientist. He is currently the Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Neurological Surgery at Northwestern University.

Professional career

Rogers obtained BA and BS degrees in chemistry and in physics from the University of Texas, Austin in 1989, followed by SM degrees in physics and in chemistry from MIT in 1992 and a PhD degree in physical chemistry from MIT in 1995. He was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows from 1995 to 1997, during which time he worked in the laboratory of George M. Whitesides. He joined the Bell Laboratories as a Member of Technical Staff in the Condensed Matter Physics Research Department in 1997 and served as Director of that department from the end of 2000 through the end of 2002. In 2003 he joined the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign as Founder Professor of Engineering, with appointments in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Chemistry. In 2008 he was named the Flory-Founder Chair in Engineering Innovation, and assumed affiliate appointments with the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. From 2010-2012 he was Director of the NSF NSEC Center on Nanomanufacturing. In 2012, he was appointed to a Swanlund Chair, the highest chaired position at the university and he assumed the position of Director of the Seitz Materials Research Laboratory. He moved to Northwestern University in the Fall of 2016, as the first Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey Professor, with appointments in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Neurological Surgery, and affiliate appointments in the Department of Chemistry, the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Dermatology. He also became the first Director of the newly endowed Center for Bio-Integrated Electronics, later elevated to the Institute of Bioelectronics in 2019 through an additional contribution to the endowment by Kimberly Querrey and Louis Simpson, trustees at Northwestern University.

Current research Rogers' research seeks to exploit characteristics of 'soft' materials, such as polymers, liquid crystals, and biological tissues as well as hybrid combinations of them with unusual classes of micro/nanomaterials, in the form of ribbons, wires, membranes, tubes or related structural shapes. The aim is to control and induce novel electronic and photonic responses in these materials; and also develop new 'soft lithographic' and biomimetic approaches for patterning them and guiding their growth. This work combines fundamental studies with forward-looking engineering efforts in a way that promotes positive feedback between the two. Current research focuses on soft materials for conformal electronics, nanophotonic structures, microfluidic devices, and microelectromechanical systems, all lately with an emphasis on bio-inspired and bio-integrated technologies. Applications of this research have included dissolvable, wireless pacemakers, optogenetic brain implants, and environmental sensors.

Awards and achievements Rogers' research deals with nano and molecular scale fabrication, materials, and patterning techniques for electronic and photonic devices, lately with a strong emphasis on bio-integrated and bio-inspired systems. He has published ~1000 papers (~250,000 citations, per Google Scholar), and is an inventor on over 100 patents and patent applications, more than 50 of which are licensed or in current use. More than 160 former PhD students and postdoctoral fellows from his group are now in faculty positions at some of the most competitive institutions in the world - Stanford, MIT, Northwestern, Duke, Dartmouth, Univ. Illinois, Georgia Tech, Univ Southern Calif, Penn State, Texas A&M Univ, Purdue Univ, NCSU and many others in the US; TU Delft, ETH, Univ. Heidelberg and others in Europe; Tsinghua Univ, Peking Univ, USTC and many others in China; Seoul National Univ, KAIST, Yonsei Univ and many others in Korea. He is one of ~25 people in history to have been elected to all three US national academies—National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine. He is also a member of the Royal Society - one of three living individuals with membership in these four.

Selected honors MacArthur Fellowship (2009) Lemelson-MIT Prize (2011) Member, National Academy of Engineering (2011) Robert Henry Thurston Lecture Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers(2013), Inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State's highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois on November 6, 2021. Doctorate honoris causa from the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). (2013), the University of Houston (2021) and the University of Missouri at Columbia (2022) Foreign Member of the Royal Society (2025)

References

Further reading McFarlin, Jim (Summer 2013). "Wired". Illinois Alumni. 25 (4): 32–36. ISSN 1096-5866.

External links Northwestern University Website Querrey-Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics John Rogers' Research Group Website

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with John A. Rogers

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what John A. Rogers claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to John A. Rogers before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about John A. Rogers ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of John A. Rogers

In research: John A. Rogers appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses John A. Rogers in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: John A. Rogers is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1967 births, American scientists, Benjamin Franklin Medal (Franklin Institute) laureates, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for John A. Rogers outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study John A. Rogers in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what John A. Rogers means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain John A. Rogers out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is John A. Rogers in simple terms?

John A. Rogers (born August 24, 1967) is an American physical chemist and a materials scientist.

Why does John A. Rogers matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study John A. Rogers?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on John A. Rogers.