Dan Shechtman, an Iowa State professor of materials science and engineering and research scientist for the Ames Laboratory, won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The honor was awarded for his discovery of quasicrystals, crystalline materials with a periodic atomic structure deemed impossible in modern crystallography. Initially controversial, Dr. Shechtman’s findings have changed long-held definitions and ideas aboutmatter and atomic arrangement. He is also the Philip Tobias Professor of Materials Science at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. He joined Iowa State and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory in 2004. Reception to follow.