Robert Andrews Millikan (1868-1953)

Awarded the Prize “for his work on the elementary charge of electricity on the photoelectric effect.”

American physicist. Millikan was born in Morrison, Illinois on March 22, 1868. He was educated at Oberlin College, Columbia University, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1895. He joined in 1896 the University of Chicago, being promoted to a full professorship in 1910. He moved to the California Institute of Technology in 1921 as director of the Norman Bridge Laboratory. During World War I, Millikan was Vice-Chairman of the National Research Council. He was President of the American Physical Society. He died on December 19, 1953 in San Marino, California.