Evelyn Hu

For the Latin American studies professor, see Evelyn Hu-DeHart.

Evelyn L. Hu
Born	New York City, New York, USA
Residence	United States
Nationality	American
Fields	Applied Physics
Institutions	Harvard University
Alma mater	Barnard College Columbia University
Doctoral advisor	Chien-Shiung Wu
Known for	Fabrication of nanoscale devices
Notable awards	Fellow of National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences

Evelyn L. Hu is Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering at Harvard University.

Life

Hu was born in New York City. She received her B.A. from Barnard College in 1969 and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University all in Physics in 1971 and 1975, respectively. She was employed at AT&T’s Bell Laboratories from 1975 to 1984, when she joined UCSB as a full professor, a position she has held since 1984. She served UCSB’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering as vice chair from 1989 to 1992 and as chair from 1992 to 1994. She has been a pioneer in the fabrication of nanoscale electronic and photonic devices, has been named Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering in Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), effective Jan. 1, 2009. She has also served since 2000 as scientific co-director of the California Nanosystems Institute, a joint initiative at UCSB and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Hu has made major contributions to nanotechnology by designing and creating complex nanostructures. Her work has focused on nanoscale devices made from compound semiconductors and on novel devices made by integrating various materials, both organic and inorganic. She has also created nanophotonic structures that might someday facilitate quantum computing.

Hu’s seminal work in nanofabrication has included high-resolution patterning and high-resolution etching of circuits onto nanoscale materials. She has also developed biological approaches to nanotechnology, using biological assembly pathways to control the composition and structure of novel devices.

Some of her research ideas led to her co-founding of Cambridge, Mass-based Cambrios Technology, a start-up that is developing new, cost-effective materials of importance for electronic device applications.

At UCSB, she has led the Institute for Quantum Engineering, Science and Technology, the National Science Foundation-funded Center for Quantized Electronic Structures and Center for Robotic Systems in Microelectronics, and the UCSB component of the National Science Foundation’s National Nanofabrication Users Network.

Hu is a reviewing editor at the journal Science. Her honors include election as a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) (1994), the American Physical Society (1995), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1998). She was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2002 and to the National Academy of Sciences in 2008.

According to a winter (November) 2012 online news story article released by the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (featured on the Harvard University web site's home page), Professor Hu is exploring the use of gallium nitride wafers at the nano-scale level in the formation and use of quantum dots in nanophotonics (the study of and manipulation of light via materials- photonics- at the nano-scale level), which could eventually find use in smartphone screens and the (less-risky, non-invasive) fluorescent tagging of biological cells for their study in health and disease.

External links

• Hu Group Website
• Evelyn Hu named professor of applied physics, electrical engineering in SEAS
• Evelyn Hu's Page at Harvard University SEAS Website