Deji Akinwande is a

Nigerian-American Nigerian Americans (; ; ) are Americans who are of Nigerian ancestry. The number of Nigerian immigrants residing in the United States is rapidly growing, expanding from a small 1980 population of 25,000. The 2022 American Community Survey (ACS) ...

professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering with courtesy affiliation with Materials Science, and Biomedical Engineering at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...

. He was awarded the

Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) is the highest honor bestowed by the United States federal government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. T ...

in 2016 from

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

. He is a Fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

, the

African Academy of Sciences The African Academy of Sciences (AAS) is a non-aligned, non-political, not-for-profit, pan-African learned society formed in 1985. The AAS elects fellows ( FAAS) and affiliates. The AAS also awards the Obasanjo Prize for Scientific Discovery a ...

, the

Materials Research Society The Materials Research Society (MRS) is a non-profit, professional organization for materials researchers, scientists and engineers. Established in 1973, MRS is a member-driven organization of approximately 13,000 materials researchers from academi ...

(MRS), and the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE ...

Early life and education

Akinwande was born in

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

and moved to

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

in his early years. He grew up in

Ikeja Ikeja is the List of capitals of states of Nigeria, capital city of Lagos State in southwestern Nigeria. Its population, as of the 2006 census, is 313,196. Prior to the emergence of military rule in the early 1980s, Ikeja was a well planned, cl ...

with his parents. His father was the financial controller of

Guardian News ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

and his mother worked at the Ministry of Education. He attended

Federal Government College, Idoani The Federal Government College, Ido-ani, Ondo State, is a secondary institution located in Idoani, Ondo State in Nigeria. It is one of over 100 Federal Government owned unity schools managed by the Federal Ministry of Education, Nigeria. The ...

and became interested in science and engineering. He returned to America in 1994, starting at Cuyahoga community college and eventually transferring to

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a Private university, private research university in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was established in 1967 by a merger between Western Reserve University and the Case Institute of Technology. Case ...

to study electrical engineering and applied physics. During his master's degree he pioneered the design of near-field microwave tips for non-destructive imaging. He was accepted to

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

as a graduate student, working on the electronic properties of carbon-based materials. He was selected as an

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is an American philanthropic nonprofit organization. It was established in 1934 by Alfred P. Sloan Jr., president and chief executive officer of General Motors. The Sloan Foundation makes grants to support origina ...

Fellow during his PhD. He was also selected as a DARE (Diversifying Academia, Recruiting Excellence) Fellow in 2008. He completed his PhD in 2009. He joined

in 2010 as an Assistant Professor in January 2010, and was awarded research grants from several agencies including the National Science Foundation (NSF), Army Research Office (ARO), the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), DARPA, AFOSR, and

Office of Naval Research The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an organization within the United States Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Established by Congress in 1946, its mission is to plan ...

, the latter focusing on high-frequency flexible 2D electronics.

Research and career

Akinwande collaborated with

Aixtron Aixtron SE is a European multinational technology company, which specialises in manufacturing metalorganic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD) equipment, for clients in the semiconductor industry. The company's shares are listed on the Frankfur ...

on wafer-scale growth of graphene, characterization and integration The collaboration demonstrated scalable growth of polycrystalline graphene using

chemical vapor deposition Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is a vacuum deposition method used to produce high-quality, and high-performance, solid materials. The process is often used in the semiconductor industry to produce thin films. In typical CVD, the wafer (electro ...

, creating the first 300 mm wafers. In 2011 he published the first textbook on Carbon Nanotube and Graphene Device Physics with Prof. Philip Wong of Stanford University. He was made a senior member of

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE has a corporate office ...

(IEEE) in 2013. He has made several advances in two dimensional graphene electronics. In 2015 he demonstrated the first two dimensional

silicene Silicene is a two-dimensional allotrope of silicon, with a hexagonal honeycomb structure similar to that of graphene. Contrary to graphene, silicene is not flat, but has a periodically buckled topology; the coupling between layers in silicene is ...

transistor. Akinwande in collaboration with Alessandro Molle's group at CNR, Italy, achieved this by evaporating silicon onto a crystal of silver, monitoring the growth in real-time using

scanning tunnelling microscopy A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a type of scanning probe microscope used for imaging surfaces at the atomic level. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, then at IBM Zürich, the Nobel Prize in ...

. This research breakthrough was selected as one of the top science stories of 2015 by

Discover magazine ''Discover'' is an American general audience science magazine launched in October 1980 by Time Inc. It is currently owned by LabX Media Group. History Founding ''Discover'' was created primarily through the efforts of ''Time'' magazine e ...

. The silicene work was the most cited

Nature Nanotechnology ''Nature Nanotechnology'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Nature Publishing Group. It was established in October 2006. The editor-in-chief is Alberto Moscatelli. It covers all aspects of nanoscience and nanotechnology. ...

publication of similar age. He went on to demonstrate the thinnest most transparent electronic tattoo sensors made from

graphene Graphene () is a carbon allotrope consisting of a Single-layer materials, single layer of atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice, honeycomb planar nanostructure. The name "graphene" is derived from "graphite" and the suffix -ene, indicating ...

in 2017, which were less than 500 nm thick and 85% optically transparent. This research was in collaboration with Nanshu Lu's group. The tattoos can be laminated onto human skin like a

temporary tattoo A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing processes a ...

, but could measure

electrocardiography Electrocardiography is the process of producing an electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG), a recording of the heart's electrical activity through repeated cardiac cycles. It is an electrogram of the heart which is a graph of voltage versus time of t ...

electroencephalography Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The biosignal, bio signals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in ...

, temperature and hydration. Subsequently, the graphene tattoos were developed as a wearable platform for monitoring blood pressure continuously using the bio-impedance modality published in Nature Nanotechnology in 2022. He demonstrated the first atomristor by investigating nonvolatile resistance switching using a 2D atomic sheet of

molybdenum disulfide Molybdenum disulfide (or moly) is an inorganic chemistry, inorganic compound composed of molybdenum and sulfur. Its chemical formula is . The compound is classified as a transition metal dichalcogenide. It is a silvery black solid that occurs as ...

. Remarkably, the memory effect persists down to a single atom. The devices can be as thin as 1.5 nm and have applications in 5G and future 6G smartphones as zero-static power radio-frequency switches,

internet of things Internet of things (IoT) describes devices with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communication networks. The IoT encompasse ...

and

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

circuits. The discovery of memory in these systems is expected to be universal amongst 2D materials. He was on the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science, an associate editor of ACS Nano, a past editor for Nature journal npj 2D Materials and Applications, and a past editor of IEEE Electron Devices Letters. He has given more than a dozen plenary and keynote talks including the plenary talk at the 2017

SPIE SPIE (formerly the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers, later the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers) is an international not-for-profit professional society for optics and photonics technology, founded in 1955. It ...

annual meeting Optics & Photonics, where he discussed the progress, opportunities and challenges of 2D electronic devices, and the Kavli plenary at the MRS Fall in Boston Dec. 2024. He was made an

Fellow in 2017 and a

Fulbright The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

Fellow in 2018. He visited the

Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań The Adam Mickiewicz University (; Latin: ''Universitas Studiorum Mickiewicziana Posnaniensis'') is a research university in Poznań, Poland. Due to its history, the university is traditionally considered among Poland's most reputable institution ...

in 2019 as a Fulbright Specialist Fellow. Three of his former postdoctoral scholars are now professors, Dr. Shideh Kabiri at Queen's University in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, Dr. Li Tao at

Southeast University Southeast University (SEU) is a public university in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construction. Its precursor, ...

Nanjing Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400. Situated in the Yang ...

, and Dr. Seongin Hong at Gachon University. Myungsoo Kim, a former PhD student is now a Professor at

UNIST Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST; ), is one of the four public universities in South Korea which are dedicated to research in science and technology, along with KAIST, GIST, and DGIST. UNIST was founded in 2007 in res ...

in South Korea. He was a finalist for the

'UT System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching' Award for several years, the highest teaching recognition in Texas. He has chaired several major conferences and program committees in nanoelectronics/nanotechnology such as: *

Gordon Research Conference Gordon Research Conferences are a group of international scientific conferences organized by a non-profit organization of the same name, since 1931 covering frontier research in the chemical, and physical and later biological Biology i ...

on 2D materials *Device Research Conference *the

International Electron Devices Meeting The 'IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting(IEDM) is an annual micro- and nanoelectronics conference held each December that serves as a forum for reporting technological breakthroughs in the areas of semiconductor and related device technolog ...

NDT Sub-committee

Academic posts

*Cockrell Family Regents Chair in Engineering #8, UT-Austin 2023–Present *Temple Foundation Endowed Professorship, UT-Austin 2020–2023 *Theodore von Kármán Fellow and visiting professor,

RWTH Aachen University RWTH Aachen University (), in German ''Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen'', is a German public research university located in Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With more than 47,000 students enrolled in 144 study prog ...

, 2017 *Visiting professor,

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

Engineering Department, and Fellow of

Pembroke College, Cambridge Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college is the third-oldest college of the university and has over 700 students and fellows. It is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from ...

, 2016 *Visiting scholar, CNR, Agrate Brianza, Italy, 2016

Publications and patents

*He has authored over 340 publications which have been cited over 33,000 times *He has published 1 textbook and 3 book chapters *He has delivered over a dozen plenary and keynote talks *He has given more than 130 invited talks and seminars at conferences, universities and institutions *He has 6 patents awarded or pending covering inventions in electronics and nanotechnology

Honors and awards

* 2024 Kavli Plenary at the Fall Materials Research Symposium in Boston, Dec 2024 * 2023 Fellow of the Materials Research Society (MRS) * 2021 Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) * 2021 Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences * 2018 Fulbright Specialist Fellow * 2017 Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) * 2017

Alexander von Humboldt Foundation The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation () is a foundation that promotes international academic cooperation between scientists and scholars from Germany and abroad. Established by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany, it is funded by t ...

Friedrich Bessel Research Award * 2016

Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is an American foundation established by Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore and his wife Betty I. Moore in September 2000 to support scientific discovery, environmental conservation, patient care improvements ...

Inventor Fellow Award * 2016 U.S. Presidential (

PECASE The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) is the highest honor bestowed by the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages ...

) Award from President Obama * 2015

Nanotechnology Early Career Award * 2013 Jack Kilby Endowed Faculty Fellowship * 2012

Geim and Novoselov Graphene Prize 2012 * 2012

National Science Foundation CAREER Award The National Science Foundation CAREER award is the most prestigious award presented by the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States Federal Government to support junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through rese ...

* 2012

Defense Threat Reduction Agency The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) is both a defense agency and a combat support agency within the United States Department of Defense (DoD) for countering weapons of mass destruction (WMD; chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear ...

Young Investigator Award * 2012 3M Nontenured Faculty Award * 2011

Army Research Office The Army Research Office (ARO) is a directorate within the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory (DEVCOM ARL) responsible for managing the Army’s extramural research program. Originally a standalone organ ...

Young Investigator Award * 2010

Grant Award

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Akinwande, Deji Nigerian engineers American people of Nigerian descent American materials scientists Case Western Reserve University alumni Stanford University School of Engineering alumni University of Texas at Austin faculty Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Federal Government College Idoani alumni American electrical engineers Scientists from Washington, D.C. Fellows of the American Physical Society 21st-century American inventors Nigerian inventors 20th-century births Nigerian scientists Associate fellows of the African Academy of Sciences Recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers