Roger H. French is the F. Alex Nason Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the Case School of Engineering, with secondary appointments in Macromolecular Science and Physics at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland Ohio, since August 2010. He is the director of the Solar-Durability and Lifetime Extension center, a Wright Project center at Case Western Reserve University which focuses on lifetime and degradation science of long-lifetime environmentally exposed materials, components and systems such as solar energy technologies, energy-efficient lighting, roofing, and building envelopes. Before this he was in Central Research and Development at the DuPont Co. in Wilmington, Delaware since 1985 and was Adjunct Professor of Materials Science at the University of Pennsylvania since 1996. He received his B. S. from Cornell University, and his Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Materials Science. Using vacuum ultraviolet and optical spectroscopies, spectroscopic ellipsometry, and computational optics, his research is in optical properties, electronic structure, and radiation durability of optical materials, polymers, ceramics and liquids. These optical properties also determine the quantum electrodynamical interactions which give rise to the van der Waals – London dispersion interactions that drive wetting of interfaces, and nanoscale assembly in systems such as carbon nanotubes and biomolecular materials. His work has produced 22 issued patents and more than 145 published papers.
