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Yoel Fink and Rahul Sarpeshkar Awarded Tenure
For Immediate Release
TUESDAY, 9 May 2006
Contact: William Smith, Assistant
Director for Finance and Sponsor Relations
Phone: +1.617.253.5621
Email: whs@mit.edu
CAMBRIDGE, MA. 05.09.2006
The Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announces
that Professor Yoel
Fink of the Department of Materials
Science and Engineering (DMSE) and Professor Rahul
Sarpeshkar of the Department of Electrical Engineering
and Computer Science (EECS) have been awarded permanent
tenure.
Professor Jeffrey
H. Shapiro, RLE Director and Julius
A. Stratton Professor of Electrical Engineering, commented
that, "Professors Fink and Sarpeshkar represent
the vanguard of a new generation of RLE researchers
coming into their own. Both have achieved remarkable
and important results in their research areas, and
both have been extraordinarily successful in building
bridges between the fundamental engineering and scientific
work that they conduct in their groups here at MIT
and the world of practical and commercial applications.
Even though each concentrates in very different areas—Professor
Fink in photonic bandgap structures and Professor Sarpeshkar
in biologically-inspired circuits and systems—it
is interesting to note that at the application end
of their work, both are making profound impact in medical
technologies. Professor Fink's discoveries have led
to new surgical methods using photonic bandgap fibers
to direct lasers while Professor Sarpeskar's work has
led to advances in low power electronics for cochlear
implants."
Professor Fink is a principal investigator in RLE
and leads RLE's Photonic Bandgap Fibers and Devices
Group. He attended the Technion (Israel Institute of
Technology) and received his B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering
in 1994, followed by a B.A. in Physics in 1995. While
there, he received the Hershel Rich Technion Innovation
Award (1994) for development of a flow-through controlled-environment
vitrification system. In 2000, he received his Ph.D.
in Materials Science from MIT and joined the MIT faculty
as an Assistant Professor. In 2004, he was promoted
to Thomas B. King Associate Professor of Materials
Science. His current interests have focused on basic
optical material synthesis, novel bandgap structures
development, low cost processing, optical characterization
and simulation and theory. In 2004 Professor Fink received
the Initiatives in Research Award from the National
Academy of Sciences for "pioneering contributions
and ingenuity in the creative design and development
of photonic materials and devices."
Professor Sarpeshkar is a principal investigator in
RLE where he leads the RLE Analog VLSI and Biological
Systems Group. He obtained Bachelor's degrees in Electrical
Engineering and Physics at MIT. After completing his
Ph.D. at Caltech, he joined Bell Labs as a member of
technical staff. He joined MIT's EECS faculty in 1999.
In 2002, he was appointed the first recipient of the
Robert J. Shillman career development professorship,
and in 2003, he was promoted to Associate Professor.
Professor Sarpeshkar has received numerous awards including
the Packard Fellow award given to outstanding young
faculty, the ONR Young Investigator Award, and the
NSF Career Award. He holds over a dozen patents and
has authored numerous publications including one that
was featured on the cover of NATURE. His research interests
include analog and mixed-signal VLSI, ultra low power
circuits and systems, biologically inspired circuits
and systems, and control theory.
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