Dr. Paul Bruce Corkum graduated from Lehigh in 1972 with a Ph.D. in theoretical physics. He is a recognized global leader in physics and a pioneer in ultrafast laser spectroscopy. The so-called “father of the attosecond laser pulse” uses lasers to take photographs of electrons orbiting inside atoms. In the 1980s and 1990s, he developed and confirmed models of atomic ionization and recolliding electrons. In 2001, he and his colleagues demonstrated the first laser pulses lasting less than a femtosecond. In 2009, he was elected a member of the U.S. Academy of Science and also received the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, the most prestigious science prize given in Canada. Corkum holds a joint chair in attosecond photonics at the National Research Council of Canada and the University of Ottawa.
