Chemistry Professor Alan MacDiarmid won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry today for his work in discovering that plastics can conduct electricity. MacDiearmid, 73, was part of a team of three people awarded the Nobel. The other two were former Penn professor Alan Heeger, now at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Hideki Shirakawa, of the University of Tsukuba in Japan. "This is indeed a moment for great joy and celebration, as we join the Nobel committee in acknowledging the achievements of an oustanding researcher and faculty member," University President Judith Rodin said in a statement. MacDiarmid is the first Penn professor to win a Nobel Prize since Lawrence Klein won one for Economics in 1980.ÿ
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