Harry Atwater is the Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science at the California Institute of Technology. Professor Atwater currently serves as Director of the DOE Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis. Professor Atwater’s scientific interests have two themes: photovoltaics and solar energy as well as plasmonics and optical metamaterials. His group has created new high efficiency solar cell designs, and have developed principles for light management in solar cells.

He also serves as Editor in Chief for the journal ACS Photonics, and is Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics, and in 2006 he founded the Gordon Research Conference on Plasmonics.

Professor Atwater received his B. S., M. S. and Ph.D. degrees from MIT respectively in 1981, 1983 and 1987. He has been a member of the Caltech faculty since 1988.