Moerner worked at the
IBM Almaden Research Center in
San Jose, California, as a research staff member from 1981 to 1988, a manager from 1988 to 1989, and project leader from 1989 to 1995. After an appointment as visiting guest professor of physical chemistry at
ETH Zurich (1993–1994), he assumed the distinguished chair in physical chemistry in the department of chemistry and biochemistry at the
University of California, San Diego, from 1995 to 1998. In 1997 he was named the Robert Burns Woodward Visiting Professor at
Harvard University. His research group moved to
Stanford University in 1998, where he became professor of chemistry (1998), Harry S. Mosher Professor (2003), and professor, by courtesy, of applied physics (2005). Moerner was appointed department chair for chemistry from 2011 to 2014. His current areas of research and interest include: single-molecule spectroscopy and
super-resolution microscopy,
physical chemistry,
chemical physics,
biophysics, nanoparticle trapping,
nanophotonics, photorefractive polymers, and spectral hole-burning. As of May 2014, Moerner was listed as a faculty advisor in 26 theses written by Stanford graduate students. Recent editorial and advisory boards Moerner has served on include: member of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB); Advisory board member for the Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences, Academica Sinica, Taiwan; advisory editorial board member for
Chemical Physics Letters; advisory board member for the Center for Biomedical Imaging at Stanford; and chair of Stanford University's health and safety committee. from the electrical engineering honorary society,
Eta Kappa Nu, April 22, 1985; IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award for Photon-Gated Spectral Hole-Burning, July 11, 1988; IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award for Single-Molecule Detection and Spectroscopy, November 22, 1992;
Wolf Prize in Chemistry, 2008;
Irving Langmuir Award in Chemical Physics,
American Physical Society, 2009; Pittsburgh Spectroscopy Award, 2012;
Peter Debye Award in Physical Chemistry,
American Chemical Society, 2013; the Engineering Alumni Achievement Award, Washington University, 2013; He is also a Fellow of the
Optical Society of America, May 28, 1992; the
American Physical Society, November 16, 1992; the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2001; and the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2004. == Personal life ==