Applied Physics (1982) Beckman Young Investigator Award (1992) Member National Academy of Sciences (2006) Fellow American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2009) Fellow Brazilian Academy of Sciences (2009) Fellow of the Biophysical Society (2013) José Nelson Onuchic (born Sao Paulo, Brazil)[1] is a Brazilian and American physicist, the Harry C & Olga K Wiess Professor of Physics at Rice University.
[2][3] He does research in molecular biophysics, condensed matter chemistry, and genetic networks, and is known for the folding funnel hypothesis stating that the native state of a protein is a deep minimum of free energy for the protein's natural conditions among its possible configurations.
He studied at the California Institute of Technology under John Hopfield, earning his doctorate in 1987.
He joined Rice University as the Harry C & Olga K Wiess Professor of Physics and Astronomy in 2011.
In 2012, he was named a Fellow of the Biophysical Society for "developing the widely recognized and highly regarded theory of energy landscapes and funnels that directs protein folding.