Karl Strauch, associate professor of Physics at Harvard and a leading high energy physicist, has been promoted to the rank of full professor, the University announced yesterday.

Strauch has used high energy protons from the Harvard Cyclotron to investigate the structure and properties of nuclei. He has also investigated the properties that have been found in recent years in the world of nuclear physics.

The particles are produced when a beam of fast particles such as protons or electrons are aimed at a suitable target, usually hydrogen.

Strauch has carried out these studies at the Cosmotron of the Brookhaven National Laboratory using a liquid bubble chamber The chamber was pioneered by the Cambridge Bubble chamber Group, high energy physicists from Harvard and several other New England institutions.

Strauch will continue his research at the Cambridge Electron Accelerator when the $11 million plant goes into operation next fall.

The physicist was born in Giessen, Germany and attended schools in Berlin and Paris, Strauch was a Junior Fellow in Harvard's Society of Fellows from 1950 to 1953, when he was appointed an assistant professor. He became an associate professor in 1957.