Ghodssi Receives Senior Faculty Outstanding Research Award

Herbert Rabin Distinguished Chair in Engineering Reza Ghodssi has been selected as the 2019 winner of the Senior Faculty Outstanding Research Award by the A. James Clark School of Engineering. This award was instituted in 2001 to recognize exceptionally influential research accomplishments by Clark School faculty.

Ghodssi holds a joint appointment in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and the Institute for Systems Research (ISR). He is the director of the MEMS Sensors and Actuators Lab (MSAL) and was the director of ISR from 2009–2017. Ghodssi is also affiliated with the Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices (Fischell Institute), the Fischell Department of Bioengineering (BIOE), the Maryland NanoCenter, the Maryland Energy Innovation Institute (MEII), and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE). He is a founding co-director of the Brain and Behavior Initiative (BBI) within the university, which aims at revolutionizing the interface between engineers and neuroscientists by generating novel tools and approaches to understand complex behaviors produced by the human brain.

Ghodssi's interdisciplinary research interests are in the design and development of micro/nano/bio devices and systems for chemical and biological sensing, small-scale energy conversion and harvesting with a strong emphasis toward healthcare applications. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Army Research Office (ARO), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Maryland Innovation Initiative at TEDCO, and the R.W. Deutsch Foundation.

Ghodssi is the Principal Investigator for a new $1 million NSF grant, "Developing engineering solutions to investigate microbiome-to-neuron communication," announced on Aug. 28, 2019. Co-PIs on the grant are Professor William Bentley (BioE/Fischell Institute/IBBR), Associate Professor Jens Herberholz (Psychology/NACS), and Professor Wolfgang Losert (Physics/IPST/IREAP).

“I am indeed honored by this great recognition during the 20th anniversary year of my coming to the University of Maryland," Ghodssi said. "I share this award with all the talented and creative undergraduate and graduate students, as well as the postdoctoral researchers who have worked with me in the MEMS Sensors and Actuators Laboratory during this time.”

Published August 28, 2019