Shoucheng Zhang, 1963-2018

Shocking and saddening news this week about the death of Shoucheng Zhang, Stanford condensed matter theorist who had made extremely high impact contributions to multiple topics in the field.    He began his research career looking at rather exotic physics; string theory was all the rage, and this was one of his first papers.  His first single-author paper, according to scopus, is this Phys Rev Letter looking at the possibility of an exotic (Higgs-related) form of superconductivity on a type of topological defect in spacetime.  Like many high energy theorists of the day, he made the transition to condensed matter physics, where his interests in topology and field theory were present throughout his research career.  Zhang made important contributions on the fractional quantum Hall effect (and here and here), the problem of high temperature superconductivity in the copper oxides (here), and most recently and famously, the quantum spin Hall effect (here for example).   He'd won a ton of major prizes, and was credibly in the running for a share of a future Nobel regarding topological materials and quantum spin Hall physics.

I had the good fortune to take one quarter of "introduction to many-body physics" (basically quantum field theory from the condensed matter perspective) from him at Stanford.  His clear lectures, his excellent penmanship at the whiteboard, and his ever-present white cricket sweater are standout memories even after 24 years.  He was always pleasant and enthusiastic when I'd see him.  In addition to his own scholarly output, Zhang had a huge, lasting impact on the community through mentorship of his students and postdocs.  His loss is deeply felt.  Depression is a terrible illness, and it can affect anyone - hopefully increased awareness and treatment will make tragic events like this less likely in the future.