Arthur B. Ellis

Arthur B. Ellis (born 1951) is an American inorganic chemist and research administrator. Formerly Director, Division of Chemistry, U.S. National Science Foundation, served as provost at City University of Hong Kong, vice chancellor for research at the University of California, San Diego, and as the Meloche-Bascom Professor of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is known for his work in applied chemistry on metals and semiconductors.

Early life and education Born in Oakland, California in 1951, Arthur Baron Ellis was a studious child who enjoyed chemical experiment from an early age, though he credits his high school and college teachers as the source of his "inspiration" for his field.

After obtaining his BS from Caltech in his native California, Ellis went on to graduate work MIT in Cambridge, MA. His initial research was in optimizing semiconductors and electrolytes to build better solar panels, in the laboratory of Mark S. Wrighton. This work earned Ellis his first patent. Facing what he believed was a "culture of a traditional American college chemistry course [that] was also off-putting to many students," Ellis was part of a coterie of scientists who advocated "cooperative learning methods and more sophisticated assessment and evaluation tools with the intent of turning these courses into pumps rather than filters."

Ellis published approximately 200 research papers in leading scientific journals while at UW-M, advancing through the ranks to sit for a decade as the Meloche-Bascom Professor of Chemistry. In this role he advanced the work of Ph.D. candidates who went on to leadership roles in American science, including chemists Peter K. Dorhout, Gerald Meyer, and Catherine J. Murphy.

Ellis was director of the Division of Chemistry at the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 2002 to 2006. In this capacity, Ellis oversaw creation of the Chemistry Research Instrumentation & Facilities: Cyberinfrastructure & Research Facilities (CRIF:CRF) program, providing millions of dollars of grant money to academic institutions across the United States in fields as varied as Process Informatics Modeling and first-principle quantum dynamics methods.

Recognition 1997 George C. Pimentel Award, sponsored by Union Carbide Corporation 1989 Guggenheim Fellowship (Chemistry) 1987 NSF Director's Distinguished Teaching Scholar Award 1985 H.I Romnes Research Fellowship, UW-M 1981 Sloan Research Fellowship 1980 American Chemical Society Exxon Solid-State Faculty Fellowship (American Chemical Society: 1995) Leonard V. Interrante, Arthur B. Ellis, Lawrence A. Caspar Teaching General Chemistry: A Materials Science Companion (American Chemical Society: 1993) Arthur B. Ellis et al