 Sakhrat Khizroev |
Professor Sakhrat Khizroev, a world renowned inventor in the emerging area of Nanotechnology, is returning to his first academic home, FIU, to lead a new South Florida regional research initiative in Nanotechnology for Medicine (NanoMedicine). “NanoMedicine is one of the promising emerging Science and Engineering fields aimed at advancing the state of the art in Medicine and with a potential impact of magnitude comparable to that of the Silicon Valley.” said Amir Mirmiran, Dean of Engineering and Computing. In his words, “Dr. Khizroev is a leader with a history of groundbreaking research and with the passion and vision to distinguish FIU in this potentially rewarding cross-disciplinary field from many other institutions in the nation and across the globe. At FIU, he will be supported by several other Worlds Ahead experts in nano and bio-technology from Biomedical, Electrical, and Materials Engineering, Medicine, Physics, and Computer Science, some of whom boast NSF CAREER awards.” |
Khizroev started his academic career as an Associate Professor at the FIU Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) in 2003. He was among the founding researchers of the historic Motorola Nanotechnology Facility at FIU, which is foreseen to become a laboratory platform for developing NanoMedicine technologies. It is expected that he will pilot the foundation of an interdisciplinary engineering Center for NanoMedicine (CNM). By uniting the efforts of researchers across various disciplines, the Center will address the current need for innovative technologies to improve medical tools for diagnostics and treatment. CNM will play a special role at the university level and in the South Florida region. By establishing mutually beneficial partnerships between many reputable departments and institutions in both academia and industry, the Center will launch a centralized effort with one common goal: to use nanotechnologies to bridge advances in fundamental research with the most current needs in medicine. The focus on practical research which could impact everyday clinical applications matches Khizroev’s research aspirations and will be the signature strategy which will distinguish CNM from other nanotechnology initiatives in the country. Professor Khizroev brings a wealth of industry experience which could help connect the Center to many local biotech and other high technology companies and medical establishments.
Dr. Khizroev is currently a tenured Full Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California, Riverside (UCR). His large team of students and post-doctoral fellows works hand-in-hand with many Silicon Valley companies. In 2007, Khizroev oversaw the joint UCR / University of Houston / Western Digital demonstration of Nanolasers – a new generation of optical devices which could operate at a scale of 5-nm. This technology overcame the stumbling blocks which for decades prevented optical diagnostics at a single-molecule level. Some of the anticipated applications include DNA sequencing and diffusive optical tomography. During his prior appointment at FIU, between 2003 and 2006, Khizroev contributed to the development of the Focused Ion Beam (FIB) laboratory within the Motorola Nanotechnology Facility, making FIU the first university across the globe where the popular nanotechnology tool was used for an unconventional application, as a powerful nanodevice prototyping machine. Three-dimensional (3-D) magnetic memory is one of the pioneering and patented technologies which came from the Khizroev group at FIU and was later advanced at UCR.
Prior to his academic career, Dr. Khizroev spent almost four years as a Research Staff Member with Seagate Research (1999-2003) and one year as a pre-doctoral intern with IBM Almaden Research Center (1997-1998). Khizroev led the 1998 joint demonstration by researchers of IBM and Carnegie Mellon University to prove the feasibility of perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) – the main nanotechnology used today in the multi-billion-dollar information storage industry. At IBM, he authored/co-authored three patent inventions in the field of nanomagnetic devices. In 1999, he was hired by Seagate to lead their new research initiatives. Khizroev’s research was instrumental in switching the company’s mainstream technology to PMR. From 1999 to 2003, Khizroev authored/co-authored a record number of patents necessary to create vital intellectual property (IP) for the company. He was awarded 29 prestigious Technology Achievement Awards and received a Key Employee award. Professor Khizroev holds over 27 granted patents and 130 provisional patents with IBM, Seagate, CMU, FIU, and UCR. He has authored/co-authored over 90 refereed papers, 5 books and book chapters in the broad area of nanomagnetic devices. He presented over 100 talks including many invited seminars and colloquia at international conferences and meetings. He acted as a guest science and technology commentator on television and radio programs across the globe. His research accomplishments were described in various publications and press-releases including the prestigious Technology Review. He served as Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, a guest editor for Nanotechnology and IEEE Transactions on Magnetics and sits on editorial boards of several Science and Technology journals. Together with his former graduate students, he co-founded several high-technology start-ups funded through SBIR grants by the National Science Foundation. Khizroev received a BS in Quantum Electronics and Applied Physics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, a MS in Physics from the University of Miami, and a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1992, 1994, and 1999, respectively.