Saw Wai Hla earned a Ph.D. in physics (1997) from the Josef Stefan Institute, University of Ljubljana. After postdoctoral appointments at the INFM-ELETTRA synchrotron facility in Italy, and the Freie Universitaet and Paul-Drude Institute in Berlin, Germany, he joined the physics faculty at Ohio University in 2001. He was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2005 and then to a full professor in 2011. Since 2011, he has also served as a research group leader of the Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne National Laboratory. Hla’s research focuses on scanning probe manipulation of atoms/molecules, magnetic and superconducting molecules, and molecular machines on surfaces.
