John F. Mitchell is a senior scientist and Associate Director of the Materials Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory. He received his A.B.  from Cornell University in 1987 and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1993 for theoretical studies of defect structures and order-disorder transitions of early transition metal chalcogenides. From 1993-1996, he was a DOE Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow at Argonne’s Materials Science Division, where his research involved synthesis of superconducting cuprates and then synthesis and crystal growth of rare earth manganites exhibiting colossal magnetoresistance.  Appointed to the staff in 1996, his current research emphasizes strategic synthesis, crystal growth, and structural studies of correlated electron transition metal oxides and chalcogenides using neutron and x-ray scattering.

Mitchell is author or co-author of over 350 peer-reviewed articles in scholarly journals. He has coordinated the development team for a high-resolution powder diffractometer at the Advanced Photon Source, and led the Argonne major initiative in materials design and discovery.  He has also led a project in the DOE Center of Excellence in Synthesis and Processing entitled ​“Spin Polarized Transport in Complex Oxides.” He was awarded the DOE Early Career Award and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 1999 and 2000, respectively. He received the University of Chicago Distinguished Performance Award for Argonne Scientists in 2006. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the AAAS, and a member of the American Physical Society, American Crystallographic Society, Materials Research Society, and American Chemical Society. He has served on the Chair Line of the APS Division of Materials Physics.