Science journalist, geodesist and a physicist are Chalmers honorary doctors in 2017

Kaianders Sempler, who has been publishing popular science articles with illustrations since the late 1970’s, most notably in the weekly newspaper Ny Teknik (“New technology”), is elected to honorary doctor at Chalmers University of Technology in 2017. He shares this honorary award with geodesist Kristine M. Larson and physicist Steve Girvin, both from the US.

Kaianders Sempler
Kaianders Sempler is a science journalist, illustrator and public debater, who has been affiliated with the newspaper Ny Teknik since 1978. In this capacity he has regularly been publishing articles and chronicles about interesting technological novelties and science history events. He explains both new discoveries and known phenomena in his inimitably pedagogical and popular science style, as well as he writes fascinating stories on historical events where science and technology made a decisive (but to many readers unknown) role.

Kaianders Sempler is elected to honorary doctor in Chalmers for his outstanding achievements as science journalist and public educator in natural sciences, engineering and technology. Through his textual and visual work, he is a forerunner in contemporary science communication both in research and education.

Kaianders Sempler is a Chalmers graduate in architecture. He has had an active collaboration with several Chalmers researchers by way of publishing their submitted articles and essays, most often with much appreciated reviewing and own additions, as well as by writing about subjects suggested by Chalmers researchers. Kaianders Semplers broad knowledge and expertise about science journalism is an invaluable asset for education of researchers in popular science communication.

Kristine M. Larson
Kristine M. Larson, professor at the University of Colorado, is a world-leading researcher in the application of signals from Global Navigation Satellite Systems, e.g. GPS, in geoscience research. Her work covers a wide spectrum of geophysical phenomena and geoscientific questions – from measuring motions of the Earth’s crust and volcanic activity, to measuring sea level in a geocentric coordinate system.

Kristine M. Larson is appointed an honorary doctorate for her groundbreaking research on using GPS signals to measure soil moisture, snow depth, vegetation, and sea level. Her work contributes to improved hydrological studies, weather forecasting, climate models, and sea level rise estimates; research areas of highest relevance for a sustainable development on global scale.

During 2010–2011 Kristine M. Larson was a jubilee professor at Chalmers where she worked on the development of techniques to measure sea level with GNSS-signals. The collaboration between Kristine M. Larson and researchers at Chalmers is ongoing and the question of how accurate sea level can be measured becomes even more important now when the new twin telescopes at the Onsala Space Observatory start to observe.

Steven Girvin
Steve Girvin is Professor of Physics & Applied Physics and Deputy Provost for Research at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. He is a prominent researcher in the field of condensed matter physics, and has given important contributions to the understanding of the fractional quantum Hall effect, single electron devices and quantum information. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, as well as a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

In parallel with his assignment as Deputy Provost, he is leading a very successful theory group working on quantum information. The group has among other achievements worked out concepts for novel quantum bits and laid the foundations for the quickly growing field of circuit quantum electrodynamics.

Steve Girvin spent two years as a post-doc at Chalmers during the 1980s and then established contacts with Swedish researchers, leading to a number of fruitful collaborations. He has frequent contacts with the department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience at Chalmers on the topic of quantum computers. In addition to collaborative research projects, he has also had advisory functions in numerous organisation committees, and has also been a speaker at many local workshops and conferences, the latest being the Chalmers' Initiative Seminar on Quantum Technology in December 2016.

For more information, please contact:
Erika Hansson, +46-31-772 2746, erika.hansson@chalmers.se