Physics Department

Miguel Kiwi Tichauer is a civil mechanical engineer from the Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa María, a PhD in Physics from the University of Virginia, United States (1967), and a National Prize for Exact Sciences 2007. He is also an academic and researcher in the Physics Department of the Faculty of Sciences of the Universidad de Chile. Department he helped to found in 1965 and also has been Director between 1969 and 1970 and between 2014 and 2018.

He began his research at the Universidad de Chile in 1962, developing, over 60 years, outstanding work in the advancement of physics in our country and in the training of doctors in the condensed matter physics field, and in the generation of high-impact investigations. One of the latest research was his discovery about the Exchange-bias phenomenon in magnetism and its potential impacts on the computer industry and nanotechnology.

In 2007, the Chilean Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge, and Innovation awarded him the National Prize for Exact Sciences. An award that adds to a long list of distinctions and important positions, such as the Guggenheim scholarship, the Critics’ Award for Aesthetics in Sciences exhibition, the prize for International Cooperation in Science, Technology, and Innovation, Dr. Luis Federico Leloir (Argentina, 2014), besides being President of the Chilean Physical Society and member of the American Physical Society.

In 2022, during the celebration of the 180 years of this house of studies, Universidad de Chile distinguished him again for his contribution to the R&D he keeps performing in Chilean and worldwide science.