Education Cohen was born in 1979 in New York City, New York. He is the son of
Joel E. Cohen, Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of Populations at
Rockefeller University in New York. He attended
Hunter College Elementary School and
Hunter College High School, a magnet school in
New York City. He graduated
Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from
Harvard College with an A.B. in chemistry and physics. He received a Ph.D. in
theoretical physics from
Cambridge University, where he was a
Marshall Scholar, in 2003, and a Ph.D. in
experimental physics from Stanford in 2006 with
W.E. Moerner. Cohen completed a postdoctoral fellowship in chemistry at
Stanford University in 2007.
Research Cohen's research combines building physical tools to probe biological molecules, using nanofabrication, lasers, microfluidics, electronics and biochemistry to generate data. His current research includes single-molecule spectroscopy of microbial
rhodopsins, the motion of bacteria in mucus, and new magneto-optical and chiroptical effects in organic molecules.
Inventions In fifth grade, Cohen invented an "alarm" clock that woke him by playing a prerecorded message. In high school, Cohen created an eye-tracking apparatus for neuroscience experiments to benefit the disabled, an electrochemical hard disk drive, He also invented and built a nanoscale patterning technique using an electrochemical
scanning tunneling microscope in his bedroom, which led to winning the
Westinghouse Science Talent Search. His success in the Westinghouse competition led then-mayor of New York City,
Rudy Giuliani, to declare March 12, 1997 "Adam Ezra Cohen Day". For his dissertation at Stanford, Cohen invented the Anti-Brownian Electrokinetic trap, known as the ABEL trap, a machine capable of trapping and manipulating individual biomolecules in solution.
Awards In high school, Cohen won the
Westinghouse Science Talent Search, now the Regeneron Science Talent Search, for an invention that involved building a scanning tunneling microscope in his bedroom. In 2007, he was named to the
MIT Technology Review TR35 as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35. In 2014, he won the inaugural national
Blavatnik National Award for Young Scientists, awarded by the Blavatnik Family Foundation and the
New York Academy of Sciences to "celebrate America’s most innovative and promising faculty-rank scientists and engineers". ==References==