David N. Seidman

David N. Seidman is an American materials scientist known for his work in atom-probe tomography and atomic-scale characterization of materials. He holds the title of Walter P. Murphy Professor Emeritus of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University and is the founding and current director of the Northwestern University Center for Atom-Probe Tomography (NUCAPT).

Early life and education Seidman was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1938 to Charles Seidman (1906-2002) and Jeannette Cohen Seidman (1908-2003). He attended Brooklyn Technical High School, graduating with honors in 1956. Seidman earned his Bachelor of Science in Physical Metallurgy and Physics from New York University in 1960 and his Master of Science in Physical Metallurgy in 1962. He completed his Ph.D. in Physical Metallurgy and Physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1965 under the mentorship of Robert W. Balluffi, focusing on atomic defects in metals.

Academic career Seidman's academic career began at Cornell University, where he served as a professor of materials science and engineering. During his tenure, he initiated the use of field-ion microscopy in January 1966 to study point defects in quenched or irradiated materials. He also constructed the first ultrahigh vacuum atom-probe field-ion microscope that was entirely computer-controlled for high mass resolution, setting the standard for future instrument design

Robert Lansing Hardy Gold Medal (TMS, 1966) Albert Sauveur Achievement Award (ASM International, 2006) Gold Medal (ASM International, 2019) David Turnbull Lecturer Award (Materials Research Society, 2008) Distinguished Scientist Award in Physical Sciences (Microscopy Society of America, 2020) Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung Prize (1989, 1992) Max Planck Research Prize, jointly awarded with Professor Peter Haasen (1993) Robert Franklin Mehl Medal (TMS, 2011)

Additionally, his research from 1968 to 1977 was rated among the top twenty most highly rated major achievements sponsored by the National Science Foundation in materials science, as identified by a MITRE evaluative study of Materials Research Laboratory Programs. He also received the National Science Foundation Creativity Extension Award (2001–2003) and an IBM Faculty Research Award (2010–2011). In February 2009, Seidman was honored with a two-and-a-half-day symposium at the annual TMS meeting in San Francisco, California. From 2011 to 2012, he served as a Sackler Lecturer at the Mortimer and Raymond Sackler Institute of Advanced Studies at Tel Aviv University. In December 2025, Seidman was hosted by the Faculty of Engineering at Tel Aviv University, where he was named an Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Engineering by university president Professor Ariel Porat. This was the first time the faculty had conferred the distinction. The honor recognized his scientific contributions to materials science and engineering, his international standing in the field, and his longstanding collaborations with Tel Aviv University, Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering, and the materials science community in Israel.

Research Seidman has authored over 500 high-impact peer-reviewed publications focusing on the atomic-scale study of materials. His research enables advancements in applications such as nanotechnology, additive manufacturing, quantum computing, alternative green energy solutions, and structural materials for aerospace, automotive, and defense industries.

Selected work

Z. Mao, C.K. Sudbrack, K.E. Yoon, G. Martin, D.N. Seidman, "The mechanism of morphogenesis in a phase-separating concentrated multicomponent alloy," Nat. Mater. 6(3) (2007) 210–216. J.D. Rittner, D.N. Seidman,"<110> symmetric tilt grain-boundary structures in fcc metals with low stacking-fault energies," Physical Review B 54(10) (1996) 6999-7015. O.C. Hellman, J.A. Vandenbroucke, J. Rüsing, D. Isheim, D.N. Seidman, "Analysis of Three-dimensional Atom-probe Data by the Proximity Histogram," Microsc. microanal. 6(5) (2000) 437-444. E.A. Marquis, D.N. Seidman, "Nanoscale structural evolution of Al3Sc precipitates in Al(Sc) alloys," Acta Materialia 49(11) (2001) 1909-1919. K. Biswas, J. He, I.D. Blum, C.-I. Wu, T.P. Hogan, D.N. Seidman, V.P. Dravid, M.G. Kanatzidis, "High-performance bulk thermoelectrics with all-scale hierarchical architectures," Nature 489(7416) (2012) 414–418. Y. Amouyal, Z. Mao, D.N. Seidman, "Effects of tantalum on the partitioning of tungsten between the γ- and γ′-phases in nickel-based superalloys: Linking experimental and computational approaches," Acta Materialia 58(18) (2010) 5898–5911. A.R. Farkoosh, D.C. Dunand, D.N. Seidman, "Enhanced age-hardening response and creep resistance of an Al-0.5Mn-0.3Si (at.%) alloy by Sn inoculation," Acta Materialia 240 (2022) 118344. D.N. Seidman, "Three-Dimensional Atom-Probe Tomography: Advances and Applications," Annual Review of Materials Research 37(1) (2007) 127-158.

Professional roles Seidman served as editor-in-chief and a member of the editorial boards for leading journals, including Interface Science, the MRS Bulletin, Materials Today and Materials Research Letters. He was also President of the International Field-Emission Society from 2000 to 2002. He is founder and director of the Northwestern University Center for Atom-Probe Tomography (NUCAPT) and a co-founder of NanoAl LLC, a startup specializing in advanced aluminum alloys, which was later acquired by Braidy Industries. In 2019 he was elected a governor of the Board of Governors of Tel Aviv University. He is also a member of the International Advisory Board of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Tel Aviv University. Seidman held several visiting professorships at prominent institutions worldwide, including:

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (1969) Tel Aviv University (1972, 2008, 2009, 2010) Hebrew University (1978) (1981) Institut für Metallphysik der Universität Göttingen (1989, 1992) Centre d'Études Nucléaires de Saclay (1989)

Legacy and impact Seidman's innovations in materials characterization, particularly through atom-probe tomography, led to profound implications across industries, from aerospace to nanotechnology. His mentorship and leadership have influenced many scientists and engineers. Seidman is the director of the Northwestern University Center for Atom-Probe Tomography (NUCAPT), and the National Science Foundation funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. NUCAPT was founded in 2004 by David N. Seidman. It is a completely open facility for all researchers internal and external to Northwestern University and it has attracted researchers from universities and national laboratories in the US as well as researchers from around the world. NUCAPT is constantly improving its infrastructure as well as developing new techniques for analyzing the data collected using the local-electrode atom-probe (LEAP) tomograph on which NUCAPT is based. The facility upgraded its LEAP 4000 instrument to the LEAP 5000XS (Cameca, Madison, Wisconsin,) which uses a straight flight path and has an improved field-of-view and a detection efficiency of about 80%.