Professor Oliver Brand has been named Interim Executive Director of Georgia Tech’s Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology (IEN).  Professor Brand will hold this position while a nation-wide search for an Executive Director is being conducted.  Professor Brand replaces Professor Mark Allen, who has served as the Founding Executive Director of IEN since it was established in 2011.

Professor Brand began his Georgia Tech career as a postdoctoral fellow in 1995, returning to campus in 2003 as a Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.  During his time at Georgia Tech, Professor Brand has also held leadership positions as Co-Director of Georgia Tech’s Center for MEMS and Microsystems Technologies and, since 2012, as Associate Director of IEN.  Professor Brand is a world-renowned expert in MEMS fabrication and CMOS-based microsystems with over 170 publications in journals and conference proceedings.

IEN, one of the state-of-the-art Interdisciplinary Research Institutes (IRI) , under Georgia Tech’s Office of the Executive Vice President for Research facilitates multi-disciplinary research activities in the areas of electronics and nanotechnology. IEN provides core-enabling support to 10 Interdisciplinary Research Centers as well as single investigator projects as part of Georgia Tech’s on-going efforts to expand and strengthen industry participation in research support on campus.  IEN maintains and operates over 29,000 square feet of cleanroom and characterization facilities for organic and inorganic micro- and nanoscale design, fabrication and characterization.  Additionally, IEN is one of 14 university members of the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network.  Through NNIN support, IEN’s shared-user facilities boast an annual user base of nearly 700 university students and researchers from Georgia Tech, other universities, government entities, and industry.  At the national level, IEN staff oversees the NNIN educational programs for K-12, undergraduate and graduate training and educational programs.

Professor Allen, Founding Executive Director of IEN from 2011 to 2013 has also held the distinctions of Regents Professor and J.M. Pettit Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.  He also served as the Executive Senior Vice Provost of Research and Innovation from 2007 to 2010 and was Interim Director for the Georgia Electronic Design Center from 2010 to 2011. Professor Allen is a Penn alumnus, and is returning to his home university after a highly rewarding 24-year career at Georgia Tech.  He will join the University of Pennsylvania as Scientific Director of Penn’s Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology.

The Georgia Tech community wishes Professor Allen the best for continued success in the fields of MEMS and nanotechnology and welcomes Professor Brand to his new role as Interim Executive Director of IEN.