Richard Farmer's Daily Email Briefing

ACCESS BACK ISSUES
HERE

NEWS AND VIEWS
Australia

Other Countries

Professor Michelle Simmons

Federation Fellowship winner 2008.

Project : Atomic electronics: Precompetitive research for the global semiconductor industry.

Current institution : The University of New South Wales .

Host institution : The University of New South Wales .

Primary research field : Theoretical and condensed matter physics.

Professor Simmons is Director of the Atomic Fabrication Facility at The University of New South Wales (UNSW) and ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computer Technology Program Manager.

The economic pressure to produce smaller, faster transistors has pushed silicon technology to its limits. Professor Simmons has already demonstrated a radical new fabrication strategy of commercially-based silicon transistors at the atomic scale. She now plans to address fundamental impediments to transistor scaling, which are of vital strategic importance for the global semiconductor industry.

Professor Simmons obtained her PhD in physics from University of Durham in the UK , spent six years at Cambridge University 's Cavendish Laboratory, and then moved to Australia to take up an ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship at UNSW.

In 2006, Professor Simmons received a Cosmos Magazine Bright Spark Award for Australia 's Top 10 Scientific Minds under 45, and in 2005 s he was awarded the Australian Academy of Science Pawsey Medal . She has filed three patents and served on numerous international committees, including the C8 Commission for Semiconductors.

Professor Simmons has been a member of the ARC College of Experts, including as Chair of the Physics, Chemistry and Geoscience panel, and she is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.

This is her second Federation Fellowship .