JSNN Alumnus Receives Prestigious Dissertation Award

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (March 10, 2020) — Manish Sharma, Ph.D., an alumnus of the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering (JSNN), received the 2020 Council of Historically Black Graduate Schools (CHBGS) ProQuest Dissertation Award at its 50^th Annual Conference on March 5 in Birmingham.

As part of the recognition, Sharma presented a 10-minute summary of his dissertation, “A Study of Molecular Beam Epitaxially Grown GaAsSb (N) Nanowires for Infrared Photodetector Applications.”

“It is an honor to be nominated and acknowledged for my contributions to the field,” said Sharma, a process engineer at Intel Corporation. “This opportunity happens only once in a lifetime and I could not have done it without the assistance and guidance of my advisor, Dr. Shanthi Iyer.” 

Iyer, Ph.D., a nanoengineering professor at JSNN, mentored Sharma and nominated his dissertation to be reviewed by the CHBGS screening committee in 2019.

“Manish was an ideal student. He possessed experimental dexterity and analytic skills and was very disciplined,” said Iyer. “He consistently demonstrated technical aptitude and leadership qualities when assisting other students in the laboratory, and he always exceeded expectations.”

Iyer noted in her nomination letter that Sharma’s work focused on demonstrating the manufacturing scalability of these nanowires corresponding to a wavelength of 1.3 μm. This focus is of great interest to the field as there is a need to overcome the inter-chip bottleneck of data transfer rate.

Sharma’s research opened doors for several oral presentations at international gatherings including the Materials Research Society and the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers conference.

Nominations for the award are limited to CHBGS member institutions and all degree requirements must be completed within two years of the nomination.

This recognition is North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University’s third appearance in ProQuest’s Hall of Scholars. Jeremy C. Ferrell, Ph.D. and Kristen L. Rhinehardt, Ph.D. received the award in 2016 and 2017, respectively.