Stacey Bent is a professor of

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of the operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials ...

and vice provost for graduate education and postdoctoral affairs (VPGE) at

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 ...

. She is the Jagdeep and Roshni Singh Professor of Engineering, the Bert and Candace Forbes University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

. She was the director of the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy and a senior associate dean in the

Stanford School of Engineering Stanford University School of Engineering is one of the schools of Stanford University. The current dean is Jennifer Widom, the former senior associate dean of faculty affairs and computer science chair. She is the school's 10th dean. Organizati ...

until 2019. She is best known for contributions to semiconductor processing,

materials chemistry Materials science is an interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of finding uses for materials in other fields and industries. The intellectual origins of materials scien ...

, and

surface science Surface science is the study of physical and chemical phenomena that occur at the interface of two phases, including solid–liquid interfaces, solid– gas interfaces, solid– vacuum interfaces, and liquid– gas interfaces. It includes the ...

. Her work has been applied toward applications in

semiconductors A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. Its conductivity can be modified by adding impurities (" doping") to its crystal structure. When two regions with different doping levels ...

solar cells A solar cell, also known as a photovoltaic cell (PV cell), is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by means of the photovoltaic effect.

, and

catalysts Catalysis () is the increase in reaction rate, rate of a chemical reaction due to an added substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed by the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst ...

Education and career

Bent graduated from

U.C. Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley ...

in 1987 with a B.S., summa cum laude, in

. She earned a Ph.D. in

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

from

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

in 1992, advised by

Richard Zare Richard Neil Zare (born November 19, 1939, in Cleveland, Ohio) is the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science and a Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University. Throughout his career, Zare has made a considerable impact in physica ...

. Her thesis studied the dynamics of how hydrogen atoms recombine and desorb molecularly from silicon surfaces, and has since played a significant role in the current understanding of hydrogen interactions with silicon surfaces. She was a postdoctoral fellow at

AT&T Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...

and an assistant professor of chemistry at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

before moving to Stanford University in 1998. At Stanford, Bent holds courtesy appointments in the departments of

materials science and engineering Materials science is an interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of finding uses for materials in other fields and industries. The intellectual origins of materials scien ...

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

, and

. She was the department chair of chemical engineering from 2015 to 2016 and senior associate dean in the school of engineering from 2016 to 2019 before her current position as a vice provost. She was the director of the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy from 2010 to 2019. She is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy. She is a fellow of the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

and the

American Vacuum Society AVS: Science and Technology of Materials, Interfaces, and Processing (formally the American Vacuum Society, Inc.) is a professional and scientific society founded in 1953 as a committee on vacuum technology. The AVS supports networking among its ...

. She has received numerous awards for her research and teaching, including the Beckman Young Investigator Award, the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, the Peter Mark Memorial award, a

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 ...

, and a

Tau Beta Pi The Tau Beta Pi Association (commonly Tau Beta Pi, , or TBP) is the oldest engineering honor society and the second oldest collegiate honor society in the United States. It honors engineering students in American universities who have shown a ...

Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. In 2018, she received the American Chemical Society Award in Surface Chemistry. Bent was elected as a member of the

in 2020 for contributions to materials surface chemistry and its application across technology platforms from energy to electronics.

Research

Bent’s work focuses on interfacial chemistry and materials synthesis, with a variety of applications in semiconductor processing,

microelectronics Microelectronics is a subfield of electronics. As the name suggests, microelectronics relates to the study and manufacture (or microfabrication) of very small electronic designs and components. Usually, but not always, this means micrometre ...

nanotechnology Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...

, and

renewable energy Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable resource, renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human lifetime, human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind pow ...

. Her research group utilizes systems in

atomic layer deposition Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a thin-film deposition technique based on the sequential use of a gas-phase chemical process; it is a subclass of chemical vapour deposition. The majority of ALD reactions use two chemicals called wiktionary:precu ...

, functionalization of semiconductor surfaces, nanoscale materials for light absorption, and

catalyst Catalysis () is the increase in rate of a chemical reaction due to an added substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed by the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recycles quick ...

and

electrocatalyst An electrocatalyst is a catalyst that participates in electrochemical reactions. Electrocatalysts are a specific form of catalysts that function at electrode surfaces or, most commonly, may be the electrode surface itself. An electrocatalyst ca ...

development.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bent, Stacey Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Stanford University School of Engineering faculty UC Berkeley College of Chemistry alumni Stanford University School of Engineering alumni 1960s births New York University faculty American chemical engineers