MTL resident faculty Luqiao Liu has been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor Without Tenure (AWOT) by the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, effective July 1, 2019.
In her announcement of this promotion, Department Head Asu Ozdaglar wrote the following:
Luqiao Liu received a PhD in applied physics from Cornell University in August 2012, then became a research staff member at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. He joined MIT as an assistant professor in EECS in 2015.
His efforts are centered within spintronics, which refers to the study and use of electron spin (as opposed to the more commonly used electron charge) in solid state physics and electronics. He has focused on the use of spintronics in the development of non-volatile memory (NVM). He has leveraged his deep knowledge of solid-state physics and electrical engineering to dramatically improve the performance of spin orbit torque-based magnetic switching for next-generation NVM. To increase speed, he has leveraged novel materials called tunable ferrimagnets that allowed him to bypass speed limitations of traditional materials systems. To lower power, Luqiao has employed topological insulators to enable the first room-temperature spin orbit torque switching with about seven-fold lower energy consumption than traditional materials. Luqiao has taught several core EECS courses, including 6.002, 6.003, and 6.012. He has also served on the EECS Graduate Admissions Committee and the department’s student-award selection committee. Professional activities include chairing multiple sessions of the American Physical Society (APS) March meeting and of the annual Conference of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials (MMM).
He has received the McMillan Award, presented annually to an outstanding young researcher in condensed matter physics by the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the prestigious Young Scientist Prize in the Field of Magnetism, presented by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics. He has also received an NSF CAREER Award and an Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator Award.