Paul C Canfield

Paul C. Canfield is a Distinguished Professor of Physics at Iowa State University and a Senior Physicist at the Ames Laboratory. He holds the Robert Allen Wright Professorship. His research focuses on designing, discovering, and characterizing novel electronic and magnetic materials, with contributions to superconductivity, heavy fermions, quantum criticality, quasicrystals, and spin glasses. Canfield earned his B.S. from the University of Virginia (1983), M.S. and Ph.D. from UCLA (1990), and completed postdoctoral work at Los Alamos National Laboratory (1990-1993). He joined Ames Laboratory in 1993 and has since become a leading figure in experimental condensed matter physics.

Research interests include correlated electron systems, borocarbide superconductors, magnesium diboride, quasicrystals, and metallic spin-glass systems. His work emphasizes the interplay between material synthesis and physical property characterization. Canfield has received prestigious awards such as the DOE Lawrence Award (2011), APS David Adler Lectureship (2014), Humboldt Award (2015), and APS McGroddy Prize (2017). His group explores novel quantum materials, including Fe-As superconductors and topological materials, through advanced synthesis and measurement techniques. He co-leads workshops on quantum matter and maintains affiliations with the Department of Physics and Astronomy and Ames Laboratory.