Awards
- National Academies - 1986
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
About Judy Franz
Judy R. Franz earned her B.A. in physics from Cornell University in 1959, her M.S. in physics in 1961 and her Ph.D. in physics in 1965 both from the University of Illinois. Shortly after earning her Ph.D., she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the IBM research laboratory in Zurich, Switzerland from 1965 to 1967, before returning to America to serve as a physics professor at Indiana University for 18 years. After her time at Indiana University, Franz spent five years on the faculty of West Virginia University and three years on the faculty of the University of Alabama. She also held visiting appointments at the Technical University of Munich and Cornell University. At IU, she also served as associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. She served for fifteen years as executive officer of the American Physical Society.
Her other prestigious appointments include: member of the Council on Materials Science for the Department of Energy, member of the Review Committee for Materials Science and Technical Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory, secretary-general of the International Union of Pure & Applied Physics, and a board director for ASTRA. She was a member of the editorial board for the American Journal of Physics, was a Humboldt Research Fellow, recipient of the Distinguished Service Citation Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers, Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Illinois, the Melba Newell Philips Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers, is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, the Association of Women in Science, Phi Beta Kappa, and Sigma Xi.
Franz has published a number of high-profile articles on condensed matter physics, most notably related to the theoretical calculations of electron state wave functions in systems undergoing metal-insulator transitions. She was a key advocate for improving physics education, and has received the Melba Newell Phillips Medal for Creative Leadership in Physics Education from the American Association of Physics Teachers. She is past Secretary General of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.