Applied Physics Letters has introduced the APL Rising Stars Collection and APL Rising Star Award to spotlight early career principal investigators making strides in applied physics. Dr. Jean Anne Incorvia has been unveiled as the first recipient, recognizing her impactful contributions to the field.
As an Associate Professor from Chandra Family Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UT Austin, and head of the Integrated Nano Computing (INC) Lab, Dr. Incorvia is at the forefront of developing cutting-edge nanodevices that hold the key to the future, utilizing emerging physics and materials.
Her work is marked by a strong emphasis on computing applications, covering a wide spectrum of research areas, from spintronics and nanomagnetism to neuromorphic brain-inspired computing and 2D materials-based computing. Dr. Incorvia's contributions extend to in-memory computing, exploring computing in extreme environments, and applying novel materials to energy and health solutions.
Dr. Incorvia's academic journey is noteworthy, having earned her bachelor’s degree in physics from UC Berkeley in 2008 and completing her Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University in 2015, with cross-registration at MIT. Following her doctoral studies, she further enriched her expertise through a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University from 2015 to 2017.
With an extensive body of work, Dr. Incorvia has authored over 70 articles published in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, in addition to delivering more than 70 invited talks. Her impactful research has garnered support from influential institutions, including the US National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy, US Department of Defense, Sandia National Laboratories, The Southwest Research Institute, Samsung Electronics, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd., Lockheed Martin, and Applied Research Laboratories.
Dr. Incorvia's outstanding contributions have not gone unnoticed. She has been honored with a prestigious 2020 US National Science Foundation CAREER award, the 2020 IEEE Magnetics Society Early Career Award, and a 2021 Intel Rising Stars award, solidifying her position as a trailblazer in the field of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
This recent accomplished cannot be celebrated without acknowledging the students who assisted in publishing, "Stochastic domain wall-magnetic tunnel junction articificial neurons for noise resilieint spiking neural networks," in Applied Physics Letters, June 2023.
Thomas Leonard and Sam Liu are both ECE Ph.D. candidates who joined INC lab in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Thomas graduated from NC State in 2018 with an MS&E degree. His current research focuses on three-terminal magnetic tunnel junctions for memory-in-logic computing. Sam Liu graduated from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities with a degree in Electrical Engineering. His research interests are in spintronics, magnetic materials, and neuromorphic computing. Harrison Jin completed his undergraduate degree in ECE at UT Austin and has now started his first year of the ECE Ph.D. program. He has a wide range of engineering interests from integrated circuit design to nanotechnology.
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Incorvia and her team on this accomplishment!
