Gang Chen is the Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering in the department of mechanical engineering at MIT. He received a B.S. and M.S. from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China (1987) and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley (1993). He has held positions at Duke University and UCLA and is the recipient of numerous honors and awards including a National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award (1994) and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2002). Some of Professor Chen's professional activities include:
- Chair of the ASME Nanotechnology Institute Advisory Board
- Co-Editor: Annual Review of Heat Transfer
- Associate Editor: ASME Journal of Heat Transfer
- Editor: Microscale Thermophysical Engineering
Professor Chen's research interests include: micro- and nanoscale heat transfer and energy conversion with applications in thermoelectrics, photonics, and microelectronics; nano-mechanical devices and micro-electro-mechanical systems; radiation and electromagnetic metamaterials. His teaching interests are focused on heat transfer, thermodynamics, micro/nano transport and technology, and radiation. He has recently written a textbook on nanoscale energy transport and conversion.
Research Scientists
Svetlana V. Boriskina obtained her M.Sc. Degree in Radiophysics & Electronics (summa cum laude) and Ph.D. degree in Physics & Mathematics from Kharkov National University (Ukraine). Prior to joining the NanoEngineering group at MIT, Svetlana worked as a NATO/Royal Society Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Nottingham (UK), a Senior Research Scientist at Kharkov National University, and a Research Associate at Boston University. Her research interests include nanophotonics, plasmonics and metamaterials with applications to bio(chemical)sensing, solar energy harvesting and conversion, optical trapping, light generation and near-field heat transfer.
Staff
Mary Ellen is the Assistant Director of Finance and Administration for the Solid State Solar Thermal Energy Conversion Center. Mary Ellen has been working in the Mechanical Engineering department at MIT since 2006, first as a Research Administrator and then as the Manager of Research Administration. Prior to MIT, Mary Ellen was a Grant Accountant and a Proposal Development Specialist at Boston Medical Center. Mary Ellen holds degrees from UMass Amherst in Management and Apparel Marketing. She has two daughters, and enjoys days at the beach and crafts, especially crocheting.
Tuyet-Mai is an Administrative and Financial Assistant in Mechanical Engineering and she currently works for Professor Chen and the Solid State Solar Thermal Energy Conversion Center (S3TEC). Tuyet-Mai has a BA in Economics from Bates College and has been working at MIT since her graduation in 2009. In her free time, Tuyet-Mai enjoys volunteering and teaching entrepreneurship and financial planning to low-income students in Boston. Some of her hobbies are writing, painting and traveling around the world.
Past Research Scientists
Professor Keivan Esfarjani received his Engineering degree from the Ecole Centrale de Paris, followed by a DEA in solid state physics from the University of Paris 7. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Delaware in theoretical condensed matter physics. Prior to coming to MIT, he held appointments as assistant and then associate professor at the Institute for Materials Research of the Tohoku University, followed by Sharif University, and finally was a visiting associate professor at UC Santa Cruz. In the past he has mainly worked on electronic, mechanical, and transport properties of carbon nanotubes. His research expertise is in electronic structure and materials properties calculations from first-principle density functional theory. His research at MIT was focused on developing a methodology to calculate thermal conductivity from first-principles-derived force fields, and materials design for thermoelectric applications.
Xiaoyuan Chen received a Ph.D. from the University of Strathclyde, UK (1993) and has worked in both academia and industry on semiconductor physics and devices in low dimensional structures. As a research scientist in the NanoEngineering Group, his interests focused on thermoelectrics and energy transfer in low-dimensional structures; photon, phonon and electron interactions in low-dimensional structures; and device applications of these structures.
Past Staff
Edward A. Jacobson was an Administrative Assistant II in Mechanical Engineering and he was Professor Chen's Administrative Assistant from July 20, 2006 to December 20, 2011. He has a BA in Management in Human Services from the University of Massachusetts/Boston and has been working at MIT for over 20 years and he lives in Boston. He is the proud Father of Edward Jr (Gus) and Christian as well as Papa to his grandchildren, Harris (age 9), Isabel (8), Ellen (6) and Elijah (Eli) (2). Gus, his wife Laura, and their children live in Lincoln, NE. Christian, with his wife Sarah and Eli, live in the Roslindale section of Boston. Ed's hobbies are cooking and singing. He first began singing in choirs at age 10 and has sung semi-professionally in choirs, choruses, and small ensembles mostly in the Boston area.