Nader Engheta, H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering in Penn’s School of Engineering, is the recipient of the 2018 IEEE Nanotechnology Council Pioneer Award in Nanotechnology for his transformative contributions to the nanoscience and nanotechnology of photonic metamaterials and for the development of optical nanocircuits.

Dr. Engheta is known for founding the field of optical nanocircuits (“optical metatronics”) and his pioneering development and contributions to this field, which has merged the fields of nanoelectronics and nanophotonics. He is also known for developing epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) materials with near zero electric permittivity. Through this work he has opened many new frontiers, including optical computation at the nanoscale and scattering control for cloaking and transparency. Dr. Engheta’s work has far reaching implications in various branches of materials science, optics, microwaves and quantum electrodynamics.