Shen

Kyle Shen, assistant professor of physics, has been awarded $566,000 over three years from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Program.

The program's purpose is to fund early-career academic researchers whose scientific pursuits show exceptional promise for supporting the Navy and Marine Corps, while also promoting their professional development. This year the program awarded a total of $13.7 million to 26 researchers from 19 institutions, from a pool or more than 350 individual candidates.

The goal of Shen's ONR research, as described in his proposal, "Electronic Phase Control of Ultrathin Correlated Materials," is to create, understand and control electronic and magnetic states in materials with strong electronic correlations that are only a few atoms thick. By focusing on materials with thicknesses on the order of only a nanometer, Shen will use interactions with the supporting substrate or quantum confinement in two dimensions to dramatically alter the electronic properties of these materials.

The Young Investigator Program began in 1985; it has selected 579 recipients over the years, representing 120 institutions of higher education.

The list of the 2012 winners can be found at http://ow.ly/9QnmZ.