Sinha wins DARPA award

Sanjiv Sinha, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, has been awarded a 2011 Young Faculty Award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Sinha, who joined the Illinois faculty in 2008, investigates electro-thermal transport in nanostructures, semiconductor physics and close-packed nanocrystal assemblies. His research interests include diverse thermal transport phenomena at small length and time scales, and at low temperatures.

Sinha’s DARPA award will go toward a project that will demonstrate a circuit level nano-phononicsilicon heat spreader that channels heat along a desired planar direction over micrometer to millimeter length scales. Such directional control of heat flow can channel heat away from critical circuit elements or transistors in electronic and photonic circuits where large scale integration leads to heated circuit elements in close proximity to each other. Typically, the temperature at the transistor and circuit level rises within 1 nanosecond to 1 microsecond and is too fast for conventional thermal management technologies to handle.

The objective of the DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA) program is to identify and engage rising research stars in junior faculty positions at U.S. academic institutions and expose them to Department of Defense needs as well as DARPA’s program development process.

The YFA program provides funding, mentoring, and industry and DoD contacts to awardees early in their careers so they may develop their research ideas in the context of DoD needs. The program focuses on untenured faculty, emphasizing those without prior DARPA funding. The long-term goal of the YFA program is to develop the next generation of academic scientists, engineers, and mathematicians in key disciplines who will focus a significant portion of their career on DoD and national security issues.
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Contact: Sanjiv Sinha, Department of Mechanical Science and Engineeirng, 217/244-1891.

Writer: William Bowman, associate director of communications, Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, 217/244-0901.

If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, editor, Engineering Communications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/244-7716.