David A. Horsley, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering has received an NSF CAREER Award.
NSF CAREER Award for Horsley
Posted on: July 2, 2009
David A. Horsley, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, has received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award—$400,000 over five years—for his research in Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS).
NSF CAREER Awards recognize and support promising junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.
MEMS technology integrates mechanical elements, sensors, actuators and electronics on a common silicon substrate through microfabrication technology. Initially commercialized for automotive applications, most notably airbag deployment, MEMS technology is now used in such devices as the Apple iPhone, the Nintendo Wii and Texas Instruments’ digital projectors.
Horsley’s research focuses on making sensors that are able to detect minute changes in magnetic fields while requiring very little power, technology useful in creating high-precision navigation systems, for example. Such sensors, simply stated, use a mechanical device that converts an input signal, in this case magnetic force, into voltage. The more sensitive the electronics, however, the more energy is required.
“For every factor of two that you improve the resolution in the electronics, you increase the power consumption by 16 times,” Horsley said. His aim is to improve the sensitivity and stability of the mechanical device in order to allow a reduction in the sensitivity of the electronics and thus the power needed to operate it.
While Horsley’s research team has a five-year window in which to realize its goals, the emphasis of NSF funding is clearly on education, he said. “This award will support at least two graduate students in my lab, with an additional $30,000 earmarked to support undergraduate student research experiences.”
Horsley’s application for funding had been approved last year, but the NSF lacked sufficient funds to support all the researchers it had identified to receive CAREER Awards. The advent of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, however, has allowed the NSF—an independent U.S. government agency responsible for promoting science and engineering through research programs and education projects—to revisit applications like Horsley’s and provide funding for research it had found promising.