Cornell Assistant Professor of Physics Daniel C. Ralph has been named the winner of the University of Illinois' 1997 William L. McMillan Award for "fundamental contributions to the development and application of experimental techniques for studying nanoscale structures."

Ralph is scheduled to receive the award and deliver the McMillan Lecture on Nov. 6 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on the topic, "Interacting Electrons in a Box: Measurements of Electronic Energy Levels Inside Single Metal Particles."

The University of Illinois gives the McMillan Award each year for "outstanding contributions in condensed matter physics within four years of receipt of the Ph.D." Ralph earned his Ph.D. in physics in 1993 at Cornell, where he worked with Professor Robert A. Buhrman and in investigations of electron scattering from defects and impurities in metal nanoconstructions, using equipment in the Cornell Nanofabrication Facility. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University, he joined the Cornell faculty in 1996.