Shekhar Bhansali

Lucent Technologies CALA Distinguished University Professor, ECE Department at FIU

Lecture Information:
  • September 29, 2023
  • 2:00 PM
  • CASE 241

Speaker Bio

Shekhar Bhansali, Ph.D., is a Lucent Technologies CALA Distinguished University Professor of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Florida International University. His research interests include sensors, MEMS, microfluidics, and thin films. He previously served as the Division Director of Electrical, Cyber, and Communications Systems at the National Science Foundation from Fall 2020 to Fall 2022 and was NSF’s representative on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s subcommittee on Semiconductor and Microelectronics Leadership (SML) and is the co-author of OSTP’s U.S. National Strategy for Semiconductor & Microelectronics Leadership. Bhansali served nine years as Department Chair at FIU (2011-2020), and two years as the Founding Interim Director of the School of Electrical, Computer and Enterprise Engineering (2019-2020). As Chair, he doubled the department’s faculty, increased research expenses by 6X, and tripled its 4-year graduation rate. His transformative leadership was instrumental in steering an unranked ECE department to the top 50 ECE programs in the country in less than a decade. He completed his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at RMIT University, Australia, in 1997. Ever since, he has served as PI/co-PI on over 50 grants with over $63 million in awards. As a mentor, Bhansali has successfully advised over 200 postgrad and undergrad students, always being an advocate for minority students. He is the recipient of numerous mentoring and research awards, including the NSF CAREER Award, Alfred P Jones Mentor of the Year Award, William R Jones Outstanding Mentor Award, and FIU’s Top scholar award. He is an elected Fellow of AAAS, AIMBE, ECS, IEEE, NAI, and IOP. He was also elected an honorary fellow of ISEES.

Description

Nanomaterial-enabled biosensors have been one of the more popular applications of nanotechnologies. With the maturing of the technologies, there is an increased focus on standardized interfaces, data organization, and data interpretation. This talk reviews the current state of the art and needs for personalized monitoring systems form manufacturing and health. The talk explores the question, with a $10 gene sequence, unlimited data storage and affordable computation around the corner what needs to happen in the personalized environmental sensing space to really advance human health. After sharing some thoughts, the talk introduces ongoing research and development efforts in the lab focused on exploring the use of “AI” in advanced manufacturing and mixed reality.