Zakya Kafafi

Last updated
Zakya H. Kafafi
Born
Zakya H. Ismail

1948 (age 74–75)
Egypt
Alma mater Rice University (PhD)
University of Houston (BSc)
Scientific career
Institutions Lehigh University
National Science Foundation
Thesis Infrared matrix isolation studies of the alkali-metal cyanides  (1972)

Zakya H. Ismail (born 1948) is an Egyptian scientist who is professor of Electrical Engineering at Lehigh University. Her research considers printed electronics and photonics. She was the first woman to be appointed to the National Science Foundation Director of the Division of Materials Research.

Contents

Early life and education

Kafafi was born in Cairo, Egypt. She has said that she became interested in chemistry whilst she was at high school, and that her science teacher frequently referred to her as The Chemist. [1] She started her undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of Houston, where she minored in mathematics. [2] She moved to Rice University for her graduate studies and gained her MA and PhD in chemistry, [3] and worked on low-temperature spectroscopy. At Rice University Kafafi was friends with Marilyn E. Jacox. [4] After completing her doctorate, Kafafi moved to Cairo, where she was appointed Assistant Professor.[ citation needed ]

Research and career

In 1986, while on a sabbatical, Kafafi visited the United States, where she learned about a job that was open in the Optical Sciences Division at the United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). [5] Kafafi eventually joined NRL, where she established the organic optoelectronics section. [6] Here she worked on nonlinear optical materials and colour centre lasers. [2] She transitioned from chemistry to materials science and eventually ended up in physics, studying the properties of OLEDs. [3] Kafafi spent over twenty years working at the NRL, during which time OLED displays found their way into televisions and mobile phones. [2]

In 2007 Kafafi was appointed to the National Science Foundation Director of the Division of Materials Research, during which time she oversaw a billion dollar budget. [7] She was the first woman to hold such a position. [2] [7] In 2010 Kafafi returned to Egypt, where she looked to develop partnerships that promoted solar energy across the country. [8]

Kafafi joined the faculty at Lehigh University in 2008, where she was made Distinguished Research Fellow in the Department of Electrical Engineering. [7] Here she has developed metallic plasmonic nanostructures that can increase light absorption and the efficiency of photovoltaics. [9] [10] These nanostructures make it possible to increase the optical absorption of the active layer of photovoltaics without increasing the layer thickness, allowing for improved device performance without compromising the flexibility or weight. [7]

From 2011 to 2016 Kafafi served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Photonics for Energy .[ citation needed ] In 2014 Kafafi became the inaugural editor of the journal Science Advances . [6] [11]

Awards and honours

Select publications

Related Research Articles

Naomi J. Halas is the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and professor of biomedical engineering, chemistry and physics at Rice University. She is also the founding director of Rice University Laboratory for Nanophotonics, and the Smalley-Curl Institute. She invented the first nanoparticle with tunable plasmonic resonances, which are controlled by their shape and structure, and has won numerous awards for her pioneering work in the field of nanophotonics and plasmonics. She was also part of a team that developed the first dark pulse soliton in 1987 while working for IBM.

Federico Capasso is an applied physicist and is one of the inventors of the quantum cascade laser during his work at Bell Laboratories. He is currently on the faculty of Harvard University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harry Atwater</span>

Harry Albert Atwater, Jr. is an American physicist and materials scientist and is the Otis Booth Leadership Chair of the division of engineering and applied science at the California Institute of Technology. Currently he is the Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science and the director for the Liquid Sunlight Alliance (LiSA), a Department of Energy Hub program for solar fuels. Atwater's scientific effort focuses on nanophotonic light-matter interactions and solar energy conversion. His current research in energy centers on high efficiency photovoltaics, carbon capture and removal, and photoelectrochemical processes for generation of solar fuels. His research has resulted in world records for solar photovoltaic conversion and photoelectrochemical water splitting. His work also spans fundamental nanophotonic phenomena, in plasmonics and 2D materials, and also applications including active metasurfaces and optical propulsion. 

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nader Engheta</span> Iranian-American scientist

Nader Engheta is an Iranian-American scientist. He has made pioneering contributions to the fields of metamaterials, transformation optics, plasmonic optics, nanophotonics, graphene photonics, nano-materials, nanoscale optics, nano-antennas and miniaturized antennas, physics and reverse-engineering of polarization vision in nature, bio-inspired optical imaging, fractional paradigm in electrodynamics, and electromagnetics and microwaves.

Andrea Alù is an Italian American scientist and engineer, currently Einstein Professor of Physics at The City University of New York Graduate Center. He is known for his contributions to the fields of optics, photonics, plasmonics, and acoustics, most notably in the context of metamaterials and metasurfaces. He has co-authored over 650 journal papers and 35 book chapters, and he holds 11 U.S. patents.

Yang Yang is a Taiwanese-American materials scientist. He is a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and Professor of Bioengineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he holds the Carol and Lawrence E. Tannas Jr. Endowed Chair in Engineering. Yang is known for his contributions to polymer organic solar cells and lead-halide perovskite solar cells. He was named as one of the "World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds" by Thomson Reuters in 2016. Yang is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Physical Society, Materials Research Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, and Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marilyn E. Jacox</span> American physicist (1929-2013)

Marilyn Esther Jacox was an American physical chemist. She was a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Fellow and Scientist Emeritus in the Sensor Science Division.

Catherine "Cathy" J. Murphy is an American chemist and materials scientist, and is the Larry Faulkner Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). The first woman to serve as the head of the department of chemistry at UIUC, Murphy is known for her work on nanomaterials, specifically the seed-mediated synthesis of gold nanorods of controlled aspect ratio. She is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elsa Reichmanis</span> American chemist (born 1953)

Elsa Reichmanis is an American chemist, who was the 2003 president of the American Chemical Society. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1995 for the discovery, development, and engineering leadership of new families of lithographic materials and processes that enable VLSI manufacturing. She was also inducted into the National Academy of Inventors in 2020. She is currently the Anderson Endowed Chair in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Lehigh University. She previously served on the faculty at The Georgia Institute of Technology. Reichmanis is noted for her research into microlithography, and is credited for contributing to the "development of a fundamental molecular level understanding of how chemical structure affects materials function leading to new families of lithographic materials and processes that may enable advanced VLSI manufacturing".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Din Ping Tsai</span>

Din Ping Tsai is a physicist known for his work in the fields of photonics. He is currently a Distinguished Professor at the National Taiwan University and Director of the Research Center for Applied Sciences, Academia Sinica. He has been President of Taiwan Information Storage Association (TISA) since 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anatoly V. Zayats</span>

Anatoly V. Zayats is a British experimental physicist of Ukrainian origin known for his work in nanophotonics, plasmonics, metamaterials and applied nanotechnology. He is currently a Chair in Experimental Physics and the head of the Photonics & Nanotechnology Group at King's College London. He is a co-director of the London Centre for Nanotechnology and the London Institute for Advanced Light Technologies

Manijeh Razeghi is an Iranian-American scientist in the fields of semiconductors and optoelectronic devices. She is a pioneer in modern epitaxial techniques for semiconductors such as low pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), vapor phase epitaxy (VPE), molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), GasMBE, and MOMBE. These techniques have enabled the development of semiconductor devices and quantum structures with higher composition consistency and reliability, leading to major advancement in InP and GaAs based quantum photonics and electronic devices, which were at the core of the late 20th century optical fiber telecommunications and early information technology.

Frances S. Ligler is a biochemist and bioengineer who was a 2017 inductee of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Ligler's research dramatically improved the effectiveness of biosensors while at the same time reducing their size and increasing automation. Her work on biosensors made it easier to detect toxins and pathogens in food, water, or when airborne.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mona Jarrahi</span> Iranian engineer (born 1979)

Mona Jarrahi is an Iranian Engineering professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. She investigates novel materials, terahertz/millimeter-wave electronics and optoelectronics, microwave photonics, imaging and spectroscopy systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrea Armani</span> American chemical engineer

Andrea Martin Armani is the Ray Irani Chair in Engineering and Materials Science and professor of chemical engineering and materials science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. She was awarded the 2010 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from Barack Obama and is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexandra Boltasseva</span> American physicist and engineer

Alexandra Boltasseva is Ron And Dotty Garvin Tonjes Distinguished Professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University, and editor-in-chief for The Optical Society's Optical Materials Express journal. Her research focuses on plasmonic metamaterials, manmade composites of metals that use surface plasmons to achieve optical properties not seen in nature.

Shanhui Fan is a Chinese-born American electrical engineer and physicist, with a focus on theoretical, computational and numerical aspects of photonics and electromagnetism. He is a professor of electrical engineering, and a professor of applied physics at Stanford University. He is the director of the Edward L. Ginzton Lab and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Betty Lise Anderson</span> American electrical engineer

Betty Lise Anderson is an American electrical engineer, working in the field of photonics. She has been a professor at the Ohio State University since 1990. She is a Fellow of SPIE, and a Senior Member of the Optical Society of America and of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Kathleen Ann Cerqua-Richardson is an American physicist and the Pegasus Professor of Optics & Photonics, Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Central Florida. She is a Fellow of SPIE, the American Ceramic Society and The Optical Society. Her research considers the synthesis and characterisation of novel glasses and ceramic materials.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shawn Yu Lin</span> Taiwanese American scientist

Shawn Yu Lin is a Taiwanese American physicist, researcher, and educator who made pioneering contributions to the field of photonics and photonic crystals. He authored more than 250 technical papers.

References

  1. ↑ "Zakya H. Kafafi - 2007 SPIE Women in Optics Planner". spie.org. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "OSA Election Slate for 2019 Offices". OSA. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  3. 1 2 Taz, Humaira (2019). "Zakya Kafafi: An international leader in materials research". MRS Bulletin . 44 (12): 969–973. doi: 10.1557/mrs.2019.304 . ISSN   0883-7694.
  4. ↑ "Alumna's bequest supports young female scientists". Chemistry & Chemical Biology Cornell Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  5. ↑ "Lehigh CPN Faculty: Zakya H. Kafafi". www.lehigh.edu. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  6. 1 2 "Zakya Kafafi: Making a mark with materials". P.C. Rossin College of Engineering & Applied Science. 7 February 2019. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Taz, Humaira (2019). "Zakya Kafafi: An international leader in materials research". MRS Bulletin. 44 (12): 969–973. doi: 10.1557/mrs.2019.304 . ISSN   0883-7694.
  8. ↑ "Egypt's local initiatives with alternative energy". Egypt Independent. 2010-05-19. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  9. ↑ "Solar panels as inexpensive as paint? It's possible due to research at UB, elsewhere". www.buffalo.edu. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  10. ↑ Gan, Qiaoqiang; Bartoli, Filbert J.; Kafafi, Zakya H. (2013). "Plasmonic-Enhanced Organic Photovoltaics: Breaking the 10% Efficiency Barrier". Advanced Materials. 25 (17): 2385–2396. Bibcode:2013AdM....25.2385G. doi:10.1002/adma.201203323. ISSN   1521-4095. PMID   23417974. S2CID   13121924.
  11. ↑ "AAAS Names Deputy Editors of Science Advances". American Association for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  12. ↑ "Zakya Kafafi". spie.org. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  13. ↑ "StackPath". www.laserfocusworld.com. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  14. ↑ "2007 OSA Fellows". The Optical Society. 2007. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  15. ↑ "AAAS Fellows 2007" (PDF). AAAS. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  16. ↑ "2015 MRS Fellows". www.mrs.org. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  17. ↑ CSW. "March 29th Dinner Meeting to Honor Awardees – Chemical Society of Washington" . Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  18. ↑ "Zakya H. Kafafi". Premios Fronteras (in Spanish). Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  19. ↑ "KFAS announces winners of 2018 prizes". KFAS. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
  20. ↑ "National Academy of Engineering Elects 106 Members and 23 International Members". NAE. February 9, 2021. Retrieved 2021-02-10.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.