Jacob Israelachvili, professor of chemical engineering at UCSB, is the 2009 recipient of the American Chemical Society’s Award in Colloid and Surface Chemistry.

Israelachvili is best known for developing the surface forces apparatus, which he originally built as a graduate student, to study surface forces in air. He has modified the instrument over the years for use in many different applications.

“Experimental measurements of intermolecular and surface forces did not really exist until Jacob Israelachvili came along with SFA,” said Joseph A.
Zasadzinski, a professor of chemical engineering at UCSB.

Israelachvili has used the technique to examine intermolecular and intersurface forces in biological, complex fluid and materials systems.
According to colleagues, he is a physicist, a chemist, a biologist and an engineer. In his work, he is both an experimentalist and a theoretician.

He has published more than 300 papers and is the author of a textbook titled Intermolecular and Surface Forces.

The award will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society later this month.