Nilsson Named Future Faculty Fellow

The Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) extends its congratulations to graduate student Hanna Nilsson (advised by Associate Professor John Cumings), who was one of only 20 students from throughout the Clark School chosen to join this year's Future Faculty Program cohort.

The Future Faculty Program, launched in 2007, was created to prepare students for academic careers in top-50 engineering schools by helping them hone their skills in areas such as technical and grant writing, curriculum development, teaching, research, oral presentations, and interviewing. The program includes seminars, a teaching practicum, and a research mentoring practicum, and takes three to five semesters to complete. Participants are known as Future Faculty Fellows.

“I am thrilled and very honored to be part of the Clark School's Future Faculty Program,” says Nilsson. “It is wonderful to know that I will start my academic career with such great preparation and support from the University of Maryland. I hope that the program will increase my success as an educator, mentor, and researcher throughout my career.”

Nilsson, the recipient of a 2012 Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation, focuses on characterizing the thermal contact resistance and thermal conductivity of carbon nanotubes using an in situ transmission electron microscopy technique called electron thermal microscopy. Estimated at up to 6,000 W/(mK), carbon nanotubes' theoretically high thermal conductivity should make them ideal for heat management in small-scale electronics, but experimental measurements have shown much lower values because of the tubes' thermal contact resistance.

Nilsson's goal is to characterize this property and determine how it might be controlled, paving the way for the material's broader use in electronics. She is scheduled to present her latest results at the national meeting of the Materials Research Society this March in San Francisco, Ca. Nilsson’s fellow Cumings Group member, Khim Karki, is also a member of the Future Faculty Program.

Published January 28, 2013