Assistant Professor Goutam Koley wins NSF Career Award

Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering Dr. Goutam Koley has won a highly competitive National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award that is widely recognized as the most prestigious award for young faculty members. The NSF CAREER program recognizes and supports the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who are most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century. CAREER awardees are selected on the basis of creative career-development plans that effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their institution and department.

The five-year $400,000 award will support Dr. Koley’s work on nanoelectromechanical systems and nanoscale sensors. With an official title of “InN nanowire based multifunctional nanocantilever sensors,” the project involves synthesis of novel indium nitride (InN) nanowire based electromechanical resonators for sensing a wide variety of airborne analytes including atmospheric pollutants, explosives, and chemical warfare agents, with very low power consumption and very high sensitivity. This research on the development of novel nanowire probes, which can also be used for many other applications including neuronal signal measurements and scanning probe microscopy, directly addresses the current challenges in scaling down of electromechanical systems, and promises to make them more integrable with Si based complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) devices in future generations of multifunctional micro-chips.

Dr. Koley joined the Department of Electrical Engineering in August 2003, immediately after receiving his Ph.D degree from Cornell University. Prior to that, he received his M.S. degree from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, in 1999, and B. Tech. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, in 1998, both in Electrical Engineering. Apart from investigating micro and nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS) for sensing applications, he is also engaged in research on bio-implantable devices, semiconductor materials characterization and device fabrication, and scanning probe microscopy. Dr. Koley has authored and co-authored 30 peer-reviewed journal articles, 1 book chapter, and 29 conference presentations/proceedings. He is currently a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Past NSF CAREER Award winners in the department include Drs. Mohammod Ali in 2003, Enrico Santi in 2004, and Yong-June Shin in 2008.

Dr. Koley has just recently been notified that he is being promoted to Associate Professor and has received tenure.