Luz Josefina Martínez-Miranda

With great sadness, we write to share news of the sudden passing of Luz Josefina Martínez-Miranda, professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Maryland in College Park. We are heartbroken by her loss.

Luz was an internationally recognized physicist in liquid crystals and liquid crystal–nanoparticle composites, their applications in magnetic resonance imaging and in photovoltaics, and their characterization using x-ray scattering techniques. She was a prolific author, with over 90 journal publications, and wrote a book titled Liquid Crystals in Photovoltaics: An Introduction. Her recognition led to her being elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2004 and of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2007. Later, in 2014, she received the APS Edward A. Bouchet Prize, and in 2016, she was selected for the Fulbright Foreign Student Program to work at the University of Chile. For these and many other achievements, her work set trends that have shaped the course of our field.

Luz decided upon science at an early age, thanks to the influence of a talented high school physics instructor and to her parents both being chemists. She was a graduate of the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras, where she obtained both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics. She then obtained a doctoral degree in the same discipline from MIT, where she worked under the guidance of Robert Birgeneau, graduating with a thesis titled “Crossover behavior and fluctuations in the vicinity of a liquid crystal multicritical point” in 1985. She was at the time one of a few female students enrolled in the MIT Department of Physics.

Following graduation, she began a postdoctoral appointment at the University of California, Berkeley, working with Yuen-Ron Shen on the use of wetting substrates in aligning liquid crystals. In 1987, she joined the University of Pennsylvania as an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, with a secondary appointment in materials science and engineering. She joined the University of Maryland faculty in 1995 as an assistant professor in the then-Department of Materials and Nuclear Engineering. She was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 1998 and to full professor in 2023.

Throughout her career, she dedicated her time to service to our university and professional societies. She was the first female president and third president overall of the National Society of Hispanic Physicists, and she also served on committees for APS and the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science. At the materials science and engineering department of the University of Maryland, she played a crucial role in the NSF-funded University of Maryland Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, directing the minority outreach program and serving as a student adviser for more than 25 years. She was also a member of both the University Senate and the Engineering Senate and was a fixture at the Clark School commencement, serving as a faculty marshal to help direct students as they walked to and from the stage to receive their diplomas.

She was dedicated to the department, sharing her time and enthusiasm with students and colleagues in classes, at seminars, meetings and departmental events. Never one to be shy, she was vocal in expressing her thoughts and opinions in each of these.

Luz was a woman of diverse talents and interests. She studied musical performance, earning a degree in music alongside her physics degrees, and in particular playing both piano and the harpsichord.

We believe Luz’s contributions to the Department of Materials Science, the A James Clark School of Engineering, the University of Maryland, and her profession will, like great music, stand the test of time. We will remember the impact she made on our lives.

Submissions are lightly edited for grammar and style. Click here for guidelines on submitting an obituary. If you are a copyright holder who thinks that an obituary violates your copyright, please contact us .