Laurence is an Emeritus Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University. His most highly cited work is the discovery of a type of nanoparticle now known as the Marks Decahedron. He pioneered the use of high-resolution episcopic microscopy (HREM) to study the structure of nanoparticles, direct methods for surfaces with either electron or x-ray diffraction data, in-situ methods for tribology inside electron microscopes, methods of obtaining optical and structural measurements from single nanoparticles a new class of fixed-point algorithms for density functional theory calculations and more recently new fundamentals on triboelectricity. He has more than 400 refereed publications.
Laurence’s Fulbright project will see him collaborate with experts at Curtin University to explore the phenomenon of triboelectricity.