Luke Langford Receives Didier de Fontaine Theory Award

Picture caption: Luke Langford (right) is presented with the Didier de Fontaine Theory Award by Prof. Kristin Persson (center). Luke is advised by Prof. Ahmad Omar (left).

The Didier de Fontaine Theory Award Symposium was held on March 6, 2025, in the Hearst Memorial Mining Building. This award honors the legacy of Professor Didier de Fontaine (1931-2021), a longtime professor in the Berkeley Department of Material Sciences and Engineering (MSE) and a pioneer in first principles materials modeling and theory. The Didier de Fontaine Theory Award recognizes MSE graduate students who exemplify the standards set by Professor Fontaine through their outstanding theoretical and computational contributions to materials research. This year, fourth year doctoral candidate Luke Langford (B.S. 2021, Berkeley MSE) was honored with this award in recognition for his efforts to generalize classical theories of interfacial phenomena to systems far from equilibrium. The symposium was followed by a department reception held in the historic Hearst Lobby.