Prize Recipient

Vivian E. Ferry
University of Minnesota

"For proposed research developing improved photovoltaic systems using spectrally-selective photonic structures."

Vivian Ferry is an assistant professor in the chemical engineering and materials science department at the University of Minnesota, where she is also a McKnight Land-Grant Professor. She received her S.B. in chemistry from the University of Chicago in 2006, and her Ph.D. in chemistry from Caltech in 2011, working with Prof. Harry Atwater. She was a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Paul Alivisatos in the Materials Science Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory from 2011 to 2014. Her research focuses on light-matter interactions in nanoscale materials, and her specific research interests include light management in solar energy conversion, switchable metamaterials, and nanoscale chirality. She is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award, an Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award, and was named as one of Technology Review’s 35 Innovators under 35 in 2016.