IEEE Spectrum wrote an article on our work on continuous blood pressure monitoring (CBPM) wearable smart band. This work, in collaboration with Prof. Yaoyao Jia, was presented at the IEEE International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) 2026 and led by graduate students Yiming Han and Neelot Kumar.
Atomically-thin Memory (aka Atomristor) Patent Granted
Our work on the discovery of nonvolatile resistance switching in atomic monolayers of 2D materials (e.g. hBN, MoS2 and related TMDs) has been granted. Atomristors are essentially memristor or memory effect in atomically-thin materials.
The link below provides details.
Gina is awarded NSF graduate fellowship
Congratulations to Gina Perkins, a Ph.D. student researching medical wearables, on receiving the prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (GRFP)! ✨
This fellowship recognizes Gina’s outstanding promise as a researcher and her commitment to advancing science and innovation, which she demonstrated even when she was an undergrad at UT-Austin.
We’re proud to see her hard work and scholarship being recognized at the national level.
PhD Student Neelot wins TxHealth Catalyst Award
PhD students, Siva & SungJin receive Research Awards
At the annual Graduate and Industry Networking (GAIN) event, PhD students Siva Mohan and SungJin Yang have won the GAIN Research Award for “Excellence in Research.
Siva Mohan won it for 2024 GAIN. Research on graphene transfer and integration.
SungJin Yang won it for 2023 GAIN. Research on resistive switching devices for 5G/6G systems.
Back to back awards for the group research. Congrats to Siva and SungJin.
Dr. Kireev won UT-Austin Best Research Paper Award.
Recent former postdoc scholar, Dr. Dmitry Kireev won the UT Austin’s Best Research Paper Hamilton Award from the University Co-op for our blood pressure wearable published in nature nanotechnology in 2022. This was a pioneering work for personalized health and prevention of hypertension. The joint collaboration was with Dr. Roozbeh Jafari lab at TAMU. UT-Austin student co-authors include Neelotpala Kumar.
Dr. Kireev is now an assistant professor at UMass.
Grad Student receives DoE Graduate Research Award
Nick Ignacio is a third-year MS&E Ph.D. candidate working on atomistic studies of 2D materials using STM and TEM. He currently holds the position of the MS&E Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) Representative and is spearheading the revival of the Materials Research Society Student Chapter at the University of Texas at Austin. Recently, he has been honored with the prestigious Office of Science Graduate Research (SCGSR) Award from the U.S. Department of Energy.
The SCGSR program is designed to recognize and support exceptional U.S. graduate students by offering supplementary funding for a portion of their graduate thesis research. This research takes place at a Department of Energy (DOE) laboratory, focusing on areas of significance to the DOE Office of Science. Nick is among the elite group of 60 students selected for this program and will be conducting his research at the Center of Nanophase Materials located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Nick’s academic journey began with the completion of his Bachelor of Science in Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) in 2021. His current research interests center on the investigation and control of phase changes and atomic-level defects in layered materials, particularly within the context of their applications in neuromorphic systems.
When asked about his motivation for delving into the field of Materials Science and Engineering, Nick shared, “the field really appealed to me as I wasn’t sure what I wanted to study, and the multidisciplinary aspect of materials science made a lot of sense for me to study since engineering problems in all fields face some sort of materials limitation.” In his leisure time, Nick enjoys staying active and embracing the outdoors, whether it’s through long runs, bike rides, or simply spending quality time with his dogs.
Blood Pressure work is among the ‘remarkable discoveries’ of 2022
We are very delighted our wearable blood pressure work (nature nanotechnology 2022) was highlighted among the ‘remarkable discoveries’ of 2022. We look forward to advancing the concept so it becomes widely available and help many of the millions at risk or suffering from hypertension/cardio-vascular issues.
Wearable Blood Pressure Monitoring in Nature Nano. Global media interest.
We report the development of graphene electronic tattoos for continuous blood pressure monitoring using bio-impedance modality. Machine learning techniques were implemented to get Grade A accuracy results, which is the highest grade of the IEEE standard.
Work is now published in Nature Nanotechnology, and is a collaboration with Roozbeh Jafari’s group at Texas A&M. Postdoc Scholar Dr. Dmitry Kireev is the first author.
Several media outlets have reported on this significant achievement.
–KXAN News Station Live Coverage
–Spectrum TV Coverage all over Texas
–CNN
-Metro, the largest print newspaper in the World
Grad Student Siva Receives Student Leader Award
Sivasakthya (Siva) Mohan has received the Student Leader Award from the Cockrell School of Engineering. A major honor. Congrats Siva!! The official citation is
“Every year, Engineering Student Life presents student leader awards to undergraduate and graduate students to recognize students who have motivated, guided, mentored and supported Cockrell School student organizations by working effectively with colleagues, honoring contributions and pushing others to excel”
Review of memristors and applications in Science.
A thorough review of resistance switching devices, aka, memristors is now in Science.
This work was led by Mario Lanza at KAUST with many other leading scholars contributing to the review article.
We describe memristors made from 2D materials, a phenomenon we discovered and can be utilized for various applications including 5G/6G/THz ‘zero-power’ switches.
The link to the Science review is here.
MoS2 6G Switches (500GHz, 100Gb/s) in nature electronics
Our latest work on non-volatile ‘zero-power’ switches has been published in nature electronics.
This switches feature DC-500GHz bandwidth and can transmit data at 100Gb/s at ~300GHz. They can also be switched in less than a nanosecond. This performance meets/exceeds the IEEE 6G standardization target.
The collaborative work was the focus of the dissertation of former PhD student Myungsoo Kim, who is now a professor at UNIST.
The link to the paper is here.
A nature research briefing accessible to all is here
UT Press release is here.
IEEE Media Coverage is here.
R&S and FormFactor Support UT Research for 5G Switches
Rohde & Schwarz and FormFactor Support UT Austin in Research on Improved RF Switches
The RF Switches were pioneered by Akinwande laboratory based on atomically 2D materials such as h-BN and MoS2. This research has resulted in many publications at Nature electronics, Nature communications, Advanced materials, and Nanoletters.
Visual memory makes Cover of ACS Nano. Postdoc, Dr. Hong now a Professor
Visual memory paper led by postdoc scholar Dr. Seongin Hong and with collaborators from Yonsei University and SKKU; now published in ACS Nano and made the cover article.
Congrats Dr. Hong and collaborators.
Dr. Hong is now a Professor at Gachon University in South Korea as of 2022.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.1c06758
Congrats Myungsoo Kim, Best PhD Thesis Award. Now Asst. Professor at UNIST.
2020 PhD graduate, Dr. Myungsoo Kim has won the UT-Austin Ben Streetman PhD Prize “For Outstanding Research by a Graduate Student in Electronic and Photonic Materials and Devices.” CONGRATS!
Myungsoo began his faculty career in 2021/2022 as an Assistant Professor at UNIST in South Korea.
Dr. Kim authored several high-profile papers including 5G switches in Nature Electronics, and high-frequency applications of 2D memristors at the IEDM.