For more information about the Center, please contact one of our Directors:
Brian Korgel, Director (University of Texas at Austin)
Office: 512.471.5633
Email: korgel@che.utexas.edu
Mailing Address:
University of Texas at Austin
Department of Chemical Engineering
1 University Station C0400
Austin TX, 78712
About the Director:
Brian A. Korgel is Cockrell School of Engineering Temple Professor #1 and Matthew Van Winkle Regents Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his PhD in chemical engineering at UCLA in 1997, and joined the faculty at UT Austin in 1998 after a one and a half year post doctoral position in the Department of Chemistry
at University College Dublin in Ireland.
His research is in the field of nanomaterials chemistry and engineering, and he has published more than 175 journal publications and given over 160 international invited seminars and lectures. He has been a Senior Fulbright Fellow at the University of Alicante in Spain and a Visiting Professor at the Université Josef
Fourier in France and at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. He has served as Associate Editor for the Journal of Crystal Growth and Materials Science and Engineering: R and as a member of the editorial advisory boards of the journals Chemistry of Materials and the Journal of Colloid and Interface Science. At UT Austin, he
founded the Doctoral Portfolio Program in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology and directs the Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Next Generation Photovoltaics. He has co-founded two startup companies, Innovalight and Piñon Technologies.
To learn more about Dr. Korgel's research group and their recent activities, please visit the Korgel Group homepage.
W.S. Sampath, Deputy Director (Colorado State University)
Office: 970.491.8619
Email: sampath@engr.colostate.edu
Mailing Address:
Colorado State University
College of Engineering
Campus Delivery 1374
Fort Collins, CO 80523-1374
About the Deputy Director:
Walajabad S. (W.S.) Sampath received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Arizona State University in 1985 and is the Director of Colorado State University's Materials Engineering Laboratory (MEL). He has received numerous
awards for his research and teaching including the 2010 CUSRF Innovation Excellence Award and the 2000 CSU Engineering Faculty Council Award of Excellence and he received a Congressional Invitation to testify on Superconductors in 1987. He
has been involved with nearly 50 publications.
In the past two decades, Dr. Sampath and his research associates, Al Enzenroth and Kurt Barth, have persistently investigated and eliminated obstacles to the mass production of CdTe
photovoltaics. Their research accomplishments include: a back surface electrical contact for CdTe solar cells via a highly controlled introduction of copper into the device, a continuous, inline, scalable manufacturing process
in which all processes occur in one vacuum chamber and a method for encapsulating the finished modules that is more weather-resistant and ten times faster than existing methods. These advances have helped lower manufacturing costs and
improved material utilization rates by as much as 95%.
For more information about the vision and research of the Materials Engineering Lab and to hear more about Dr. Sampath's research in his own words, please visit the MEL's homepage.