Professor David Nesbitt is a fellow of JILA, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a Full Professor in both the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and in the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Dr. Nesbitt received his BA in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard University in 1975 and his PhD in Chemical Physics from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1981. He is interested in laser spectroscopy, dynamics, and kinetics of fundamental molecular, bio-molecular, and nanoparticle systems, studied at either the quantum state-to-state or single molecule level.

Dr. Nesbitt has won numerous honors and awards including National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow, National Bureau of Standards, 1981-82; Miller Fellow, University of California, Berkeley, 1982-84; American Chemical Society Nobel Laureate Signature Award, 1983 (with S. R. Leone and J. T. Hynes); Dreyfus Foundation Grant for Newly Appointed Faculty in Chemistry, 1984; Alfred P. Sloan Fellow, 1987; Wilson Prize Lecture, 1989; American Physical Society Fellow, 1991; Arthur S. Fleming Award for Government Service, 1991; Department of Commerce Silver Medal, 1992; Edward Uhler Condon Award (National Institute for Standards and Technology), 1995; Earle K. Plyler Prize (American Physical Society) 1997; William F. Meggers Award (Optical Society of America), 1999; Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, 1999-present; Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award, 1999; Bourke Medal, Royal Society of Chemistry, Faraday Division, 2002; Senior Fellow, National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2005-present; Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), 2005; Presidential Rank Award, 2009; Fellow of the American Chemistry Society, 2010-present; E. Bright Wilson Award (American Chemical Society), 2017.