Research puts ASU on international radar
ASU engineering professor Ghassan Jabbour is helping to draw an international spotlight onto next-generation electronics research at ASU.
An exhibit of research projects undertaken by Jabbour's team won the Best Poster Presenter Award (U.S. division) this fall at the 2006 Japan-America Frontiers of Engineering Conference in Tsukuba, Japan.
Award winners were selected by the National Academy of Engineers, the Japan Science and Technology Agency and the Engineering Academy of Japan from among 65 posters representing the work of “outstanding engineers” from companies, universities and government laboratories in the United States and Japan.
“Winning this major award is exemplary of the many ways Ghassan is raising the stature of ASU in many high-profile technology arenas,” says Gregory Raupp, director of ASU's Flexible Display Center.
Jabbour is a member of the faculty in the new School of Materials, which is jointly administered by the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He's also director of Electro-Optic Materials and Devices Research and Development at the Flexible Display Center.
Jabbour and his team are involved in a wide variety of research endeavors, such as printed and flexible electronics and displays, smart textile, electronic paper, moisture and oxygen barrier technology, transparent conductors and organic light-emitting devices.
Their work also includes research in organic and hybrid photovoltaics, organic memory storage, organic thin film transistors, combinatorial discovery of materials, nano and macro printed devices, micro and nanofabrication, biosensors and quantum simulations of electronic materials.
At the Japan conference, Jabbour led sessions on the social impacts of flexible electronics and organic electronics.
Jabbour also was recently honored with the title of Distinguished Professor of Finland by the Academy of Finland, the equivalent of the U.S. National Academy of Science. The recognition is part of a program to attract top foreign and expatriate Finn researchers to collaborate with Finland-based universities and institutes on science and engineering efforts.
He already is involved in several collaborative research programs with institutes in Finland, which has one of the world's most internationally competitive economies and is an emerging force in high technology.
Jabbour was one of four leading professionals – and the only academic – to present a briefing at the 2006 U.S. Senate Science and Technology Caucus.
For more details on Jabbour's report, visit the Web site (http://www.osa.org/News/policyprograms/specialevents/default.aspx#caucus).