Palacios is new director of VI-A Master of Engineering Thesis Program

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Tomás Palacios, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, will become the new director of the VI-A Master of Engineering Thesis Program, effective July 1st. Palacios succeeds Markus Zahn, the Thomas and Gerd Perkins Professor of Electrical Engineering, who stepped down as director of the VI-A Program on June 30th, after more than 20 years of leadership. Anantha Chandrakasan, EECS department head and the Joseph F. and Nancy P. Keithly Professor of Electrical Engineering, announced the transition in an email to EECS faculty yesterday.

Palacios studied telecommunication engineering at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, and received his MS and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2004 and 2006, respectively. In 2006, Palacios joined the MIT EECS faculty and Microsystems Technology Laboratories, where he focuses on developing new devices and applications for two types of novel material systems: Gallium Nitride (GaN) and Graphene. His achievements include the development of the first hybrid GaN-Si integrated circuit and the demonstration of the first graphene-based electronic circuits for communications.

Since joining MIT, Palacios has been involved with many different initiatives in EECS and the Microsystems Technology Laboratories. He has co-led the organization of the EECS Masterworks event for the last three years, and he was responsible for the MTL Seminar Series from 2009-2015. In addition, he has developed numerous collaborations with industry, which have led to the creation of two industry-sponsored centers, the MIT/MTL Center for Graphene Devices and 2-D Systems, and the MIT/MTL GaN Initiative.

“Tomás has made outstanding contributions as a member of the EECS faculty. We are fortunate to leverage his experience and commitment to continue to build on work for this important program,” Chandrakasan said.

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Zahn received his BS and MS in 1968, an Engineer’s degree in 1969, and a ScD degree in electrical engineering in 1970, all from MIT. During his study at MIT, he was enrolled in the VI-A Program from 1965-1968, during which he first worked at Raytheon in Wayland, followed by the Waltham Research Division, where he completed his master’s thesis research on “Pulse Compression Using Bragg Scattering of Light by Ultrasonic Waves,” supervised by Professor Frederic Morgenthaler. His doctoral thesis was entitled “Space Charge Dynamics of Liquids,” supervised by Professor James R. Melcher. Zahn started his academic career in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Florida at Gainesville from 1970-1980, and returned to MIT as a faculty member of the EECS department in 1980. He has received numerous awards for excellence in teaching and is a Fellow of the IEEE for “contributions to the understanding of the effects of space charge and flow electrification on the conduction and breakdown properties of dielectrics.” His book, Electromagnetic Field Theory: A Problem Solving Approach, is among his publications dedicated to his teaching and research, which is still used today. Zahn is a principal investigator in the Research Laboratory of Electronics, and a member of the Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems and the High Voltage Research Laboratory, where he conducts research on electromagnetic field interactions with materials and devices.

Zahn became the VI-A program director in 1994. During his tenure as program director, he created the VI-A Fellowship to guarantee that all VI-A students would receive funding while off campus during their fall work assignment. Additionally, Zahn made many valuable contributions to the undergraduate experience for our students. In 2006, he and Charles Sodini, the Clarence J. LeBel Professor established the VI-A International Program. Since then, the VI-A Program has had students on work assignments at Analog Devices in Limerick, as well as in Shanghai, Schlumberger in Paris, and Microsoft Research Asia in Beijing.

“Mark has been an exemplary director of the VI-A Program for over twenty years, and we are all deeply grateful for his dedication and leadership.” Chandrakasan said.