 He was Chairman of the Physics Department of UCSD from 1965 to 1968 and again from 1972 to 1975, and was Director of the university's Institute for Pure and Applied Physical Sciences from 1980 to 1991.Suhl was a specialist in statistical mechanics, non-equilibrium thermodynamics, and solid-state physics, particularly superconductivity.Several phenomena he discovered or explained have been named for him.