Prof. M. Salmeron is the Director of the Materials Science Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Adjunct Professor at UC Berkeley Materials Science and Engineering Department. He is the Scientific Director of the Imaging and Manipulation Facility of the Molecular Foundry, the Department of Energy Nanoscience Institute in Berkeley. He received his B.A. in Physics from the University of Barcelona, and his Ph.D. from the University Autonoma of Madrid, Spain, in 1975. In 1984 he moved to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a Divisional Fellow, becoming a Senior Scientist in 1996.
His research focuses on atomic scale structure and properties of surfaces and nanomaterials for applications in electronics, catalysis, tribology and environmental science. He was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1996 and of the American Vacuum Society in 2003. He received the Outstanding Research Award in 1996 and the Outstanding Scientific Accomplishment Award in Materials Chemistry in 1995 from the U.S. Department of Energy. In 2004 he received the Klaus Halbach Award for the development of innovative instrumentation at the Advanced Light Source. In 2008 he received the Medard Welch Award of the American Vacuum Society and the Langmuir Lectureship Award of the American Chemical Society.
Prof. Salmeron is the President of the Scientific Advisory Board of the “Institut Catala de Nanotecnologia” inBarcelona, Spain. He has published 390 Journal articles and book chapters.