David Robert Nelson

David R. Nelson is Arthur K. Solomon Professor of Biophysics and Professor of Physics
and Applied Physics at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. in 1975 from Cornell
University. With his colleague, Bertrand I. Halperin, he is responsible for a theory of
two-dimensional melting that predicts a fourth "hexatic" phase of matter, interposed
between the usual solid and liquid phases. Nelson's research also includes a theory of
the structure and statistical mechanics of metallic glasses and investigations of "tethered
surfaces”, which are two-dimensional generalizations of linear polymer chains. In
addition, Nelson has studied flux line entanglement and pinning in high temperature
superconductors, where at high magnetic fields, thermal fluctuations cause regular arrays
of vortex lines to melt into a tangled spaghetti state. Much of Nelson's recent research
has focused on problems that bridge the gap between the physical and biological
sciences, including genetic demixing in microorganisms, single molecule biophysics and
the structure of viruses.