Dana Weinstein, professor in the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been selected for the 2024 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) C. B. Sawyer Memorial Award.

Established in 1996, the award recognizes entrepreneurship or leadership in the frequency control community, as well as outstanding contributions in the development, production, or characterization of resonator materials or structure. Recipients are selected for their work’s quality and success, the impact and importance of their work to frequency control and their demonstrated initiative, ingenuity, and creativity. The award committee selected Weinstein for the Sawyer Award for her pioneering breakthroughs in MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) resonators fabricated in commercial CMOS (complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) chips and service to the frequency control community.

Direct integration of MEMS with CMOS across a wide range of systems and applications is of constant debate and current custom MEMS processes cannot keep up with rapidly changing CMOS technology. Weinstein’s HybridMEMS Lab overcomes these obstacles by developing unreleased Si-based MEMS resonators in CMOS, allowing for seamless integration into Front End of Line (FEOL) processing without post-processing or special packaging.

Weinstein is a resident faculty member of Purdue’s Birck Nanotechnology Center, a world-class open access research facility that enables leading-edge micro and nanotechnology education, innovation and advancement. Weinstein has been the recipient of the Transducers Early Career Award, NSF CAREER Award, the DARPA Young Faculty Award, the Intel Early Career Award, and the IEEE IEDM Roger A. Haken Best Paper Award.

Weinstein will travel to Taipei, Taiwan in September to receive her award at the 2024 IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control (UFFC) Joint Symposium. This joint conference marks the 70th anniversary of the IEEE UFFC Society.