Two faculty win NSF career awards

Two College of Engineering faculty members have each received four-year, $200,000 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Awards from the National Science Foundation.

Assistant Professor Riccardo Bonazza, engineering physics, will study the evolution of instabilities developing at a fluid interface, accelerated by strong shock-waves. This topic represents an important and unresolved problem in fluid mechanics.

Assistant Professor Luke Mawst, electrical and computer engineering, will study aluminum-free vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) for reliable, high-single-mode output power. The use of aluminum-free materials allows for novel high-power laser sources to be developed, and has applications in high-speed laser printing, high-speed optical fiber data transmission, and Digital Video Disc (DVD) technology.

NSF established the awards to help scientists and engineers develop simultaneously their contributions to research and education early in their careers. CAREER funds are awarded by the federal agency to junior-level faculty at colleges and universities.