At the end of the fall semester, Ali Shakouri will transition out of his role as the Mary Jo and Robert L. Kirk Director of the Birck Nanotechnology Center to begin the next phase of his career focusing on team building for large-scale extramural research programs.

Zhihong Chen, professor in the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Birck Nanotechnology Center is home to 58 faculty research groups from eight schools and departments across five colleges at Purdue. More than 300 researchers from inside and outside of Purdue leveraged the state-of-the-art capabilities of the Scifres Nanofabrication Laboratory and the other shared user facilities in Birck last year. This propelled external research expenditures that are credited to Birck to a record $30 million in the last fiscal year.

Shakouri joined Purdue as director in October 2011 to lead one of the most advanced nanotechnology facilities on a university campus anywhere in the world. Under his leadership, the Birck Nanotechnology Center grew beyond its original focus areas of nanoelectronics, photonics and quantum science to support a wide array of multidisciplinary nanotechology research and outreach on campus, including biotechnology, nanomedicine, pharma manufacturing, printed electronics and sensors.

After the transition, Shakouri will continue in his position as professor in the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and will remain an active member of the Birck Nanotechnology Center and the SMART Films Consortium. He will also continue to serve as the principal investigator of Purdue’s partnership with the Wabash Heartland Innovation Network, which was launched with a $38.9-million grant from the Lilly Endowment to fuel prosperity in 10 counties in north-central Indiana by harnessing the power of Internet of Things sensors in digital agriculture and next-generation manufacturing.