Saif Islam received his B.Sc. Degree in Physics from Middle East Technical University (1994), an M.Sc. degree in Physics from Bilkent University (1996), an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1999, and Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering in 2001, both from UCLA. He worked for JDS Uniphase Corporation and Hewlett-Packard Laboratories before joining the University of California – Davis, where he is a Professor of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. In 2012, he was appointed as Director of the Northern California Nanotechnology Center (NC2, later named Center for Nano and Micro Manufacturing - CNM2) - a major nanoengineering and nanomanufacturing research center. Prof. Islam co-founded two start-up companies based on his inventions with the support of UC Davis, the UC Office of the President, and the Nevada Institute for Renewable Energy Commercialization (NIREC). Prof. Saif Islam’s nanotechnology research focuses on synthesizing and incorporating low-dimensional and nanostructured materials and devices with conventional integrated circuit (IC) elements and systems. Unlike the research-based approach of sequentially processing individual nanostructures for device physics studies, his group employs massively parallel and mass-manufacturable nanofabrication to reproducibly fabricate low-cost nanodevice arrays in the areas of integrated nanoelectronics and ultra-fast optoelectronics, data communication, quantum sensing, computing, energy harvesting, disease sensing and prevention, and energy storage. He has authored and co-authored more than 250 scientific papers, organized 32 conferences and symposiums, and holds 42 patents. He co-founded Atocera, Inc. and Flexstrata, Inc. based on his inventions. He received the NSF Faculty Early Career Award, Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, Mid-Career Research Faculty Award, IEEE Professor of the Year, and the University of California – Davis Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award- the highest teaching honor the University of California-Davis bestows on its faculties. He is an elected fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Optical Society (OSA/Optica), the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE), and the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Specialties: Nanotechnology, quantum sensing, semiconductor and integrated circuit process technology, ultrafast photonics, data center communication, energy harvesting, and storage. Experienced expert witness in patent litigation.
Director at CITRIS and the Banatao Institute
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Electrical Engineering