Prof. Alex Pines, Ph.D., is the Glenn T. Seaborg Professor of Chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley and Faculty Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Prof. Pines' research has focused on theory and experimentation in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Together with John S. Waugh, he introduced high resolution NMR of dilute spins such as carbon-13 and nitrogen-15 in solids, using cross polarization (proton-enhanced nuclear induction spectroscopy). He has pioneered the area of multiple-quantum spectroscopy in which extended groups of spins flip coherently while absorbing or emitting many quanta. His techniques of zero-field NMR using both magnetic field cycling and superconducting (SQUID) detectors are being applied to the study of molecular structure and dynamics in condensed phases. His development of double rotation and dynamic-angle spinning, involving the rotation of a sample about two spatial axes according to the symmetry of the icosahedron, extended high-resolution NMR to quadrupolar nuclei such as oxygen-17 and aluminum-27 in solids. Other recent interests include: iterative maps and chaos, quantum (Berry) phase, topology, and gauge kinematics, drawing on the analogy between the evolution of quantum spin systems and the reorientation of cats falling from trees. His combination of optical pumping and cross-polarization have made it possible to observe enhanced NMR of surfaces and, most recently, the selective "lighting up" of solution NMR and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) by means of laser-polarized xenon. His research has had, and continues to have, impact from nanometers to meters and from materials to biomedicine.

In 1991, Prof. Pines was awarded the Wolf Prize in Chemistry. His other awards include: the ACS Baekland Award in Pure Chemistry, the ACS Nobel Signature Award for Graduate Education, the ACS Harrison Howe Award of the Rochester Section, the DOE Ernest O. Lawrence Award, the Pittsburgh Spectroscopy Award, the Bourke Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the ACS Langmuir Award, the Distinguished Teaching Award of the University of California, and the Robert Foster Cherry Great Teacher Award of Baylor University. Two of his patents have been recognized by R&D-100 Awards. Prof. Pines is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (London), and past President of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance.

Among his many Lectureships, Prof. Pines has been Joliot-Curie Professor at the Ecole Supérieure de Physique et Chimie in Paris, Hinshelwood Lecturer at Oxford University, Centenary Lecturer of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Loeb Lecturer in Physics at Harvard University. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of Paris and the University of Rome. After completing his undergraduate studies in mathematics and chemistry in Israel in 1967, he came to the United States in 1968, obtained his Ph.D. in Chemical Physics and the Research Laboratory of Electronics at M.I.T. and joined the Berkeley faculty in 1972.