Franklin Dollar

Biography

Franklin Dollar, Ph.D., is Associate Dean of Graduate Studies in the School of Physical Sciences and Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. An enrolled member of the Dry Creek Band of Pomo Indians, Dollar conducts research on ultrafast laser plasma interactions, including light ion acceleration, electron acceleration, x-ray production, high-order harmonic generation, and related phenomena. Dollar received a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from the University of Michigan in 2012, where his dissertation on high intensity laser-solid interactions earned the John Dawson Thesis Prize.

Dollar has received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) and was named an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow. He was recognized by the American Indian Science and Engineering Society as Most Promising Scientist and received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award. Dollar serves as Member-at-large on both the Division of Plasma Physics Executive Committee and the Committee on Minorities of the American Physical Society, and is a member of the United States Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC). He served as High Field Science Co-Chair for the Department of Energy Laser Technology Basic Research Needs Workshop.

Dollar has been principal investigator or co-principal investigator on research grants totaling over $20 million, including a $17.9 million National Science Foundation Midscale RI-1 award for the EP-OPAL Facility Design and grants from the Department of Energy and National Science Foundation. He serves as UCI Site Lead for a $48 million National Science Foundation Science & Technology Center. Dollar has authored or co-authored 51 peer-reviewed journal articles with over 5,000 citations and serves on the editorial board of New Journal of Physics.

Education

• Ph.D. in Applied Physics, University of Michigan, 2012
• Grad. Cert. in Plasma Science & Engineering, University of Michigan, 2011
• M.S.E. in Electrical Engineering, University of Michigan, 2010
• B.S. in Engineering Physics, University of California, Berkeley, 2006

Distinctions

• Kavli Fellow, 2022
• Fellow, American Physical Society, 2004
• Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), 2025
• Nature Journals Outstanding Peer Reviewer, 2017
• Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, 2016
• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, 2009
• Alfred P. Sloan Minority PhD Scholar, 2008
• John Dawson Thesis Prize, 2013
• IOP Outstanding Reviewer Award, 2017
• Proquest Distinguished Dissertation Award Honorable Mention, University of Michigan, 2012