Deji Akinwande is an associate professor in electrical and computer engineering and the Jack Kilby/Texas instrument’s faculty fellow in computer engineering in the Cockrell school of engineering at the University of Texas.
Akinwande graduated from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, bagging a double degree (B.S/M.S) in electrical engineering and applied physics. He proceeded for his master’s in applied physics. There, he pioneered the design and development of near-field microwave probe tips for non-destructive imaging and studies of materials. He had his PhD degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 2009, conducting research on the synthesis, device physics, and circuit applications of carbon nanotubes and graphene.
In 2015, the budding engineer created his first transistor out of silicene – the world’s thinnest silicon material – and he has since continued to advance the capabilities of computer chips and other electronics.
Identified by President Barack Obama, as one of the recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers in Washington DC- “the highest honour bestowed by the US government for science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers,” Akinwande stands tall as one of the best researchers in the world, in the areas of graphene, silicon electronics and 2-D nanomaterials for use in flexible electronics. He is also a co-inventor of a high-frequency chip-to-chip interconnect and an electrically small antenna for bio-electronics.
For his outstanding efforts, Akinwande has received a repertoire of awards. In 2015, he received the Engineering School Nominee for Texas System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award and also the Endowed Faculty Fellowship award. In 2013 he was presented with the IEEE Senior Member, and in the same year, he was given the 2013 IEEE NANO Geim and Novoselov (Inaugural) Graphene Prize.
A year prior, he received the NSF Faculty CAREER Award 2012 DTRA Young Investigator Award 2012 3M Nontenured Faculty Award 2012, Army Research Office Young Investigator Award, 2011 Office of Naval Research Grant Award 2010 Stanford Future-Faculty DARE Fellow, 2008-2010.
Akinwande is also a Ford Foundation Fellow, 2006-2009 and a Alfred P. Sloan Scholar, 2006-2008.
