S. James Allen, received a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from M.I.T. in 1965.  He was appointed Professor of  Physics and Director of the Quantum Institute at UCSB in 1991, and recently served as Chair of Physics, 2000-05. In 2009 he became emeritus and was appointed Research Professor of Physics until 2018.   Prior to that, he had been a member of technical staff at Bell Labs, where he was recognized as a “Distinguished Member of Technical Staff”,  had availed himself of a Bell Labs supported leave at the Royal School of Mines , Imperial College London and later joined Bellcore, as District Research Manager of Solid State Physics Research.  He has also been an adjunct professor at Northeastern University and at Princeton University.   Professional service has included election as Member at Large of the Executive Committee of the Division of Condensed Matter Physics of the A.P.S. where he served on the Strategic Planning Committee and on the Nominating Committee.  He has also served on the Editorial Board of Physical Review.  In 1995 he won a Humboldt Science Award, is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

 He has co-authored more than 200 publications on transport and terahertz excitations in semiconductor nano-structures, hot-electron dynamics, high temperature superconductivity, magnetism, spin wave logic devices, superionic conductors, metal physics, clathrate inclusion compounds, protein dynamics and complex oxide heterostructures. He holds three patents.  Current research focuses on plasmonic devices and 2D Mott systems in complex oxide heterostructures.