Milton Feng
Milton Feng, Nick Holoyonak Jr. Chair Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering Emeritus at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, received his Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Columbia University before his master's and doctoral degrees from UIUC in 1976 and 1979. (1)
Following receiving his doctorate in 1979, Feng became head of the GaAs material and device group at Torrance Research Center, a position he held until 1983, when he invented technology for use in X-band phase array radar application. From 1984 to 1986, he worked for Ford Microelectronics before becoming an Electrical & Computer Engineering professor at the Microelectronics Laboratory at the University of Illinois in 1991. At the University of Illinois, Feng began to develop the work he is most widely known for, his work with transistors. His paper on his work with transistors was selected as one of the top five papers ever published by Applied Physics Letters, which had existed for 43 years, and one of the top 100 most important discoveries by Discover magazine in 2005. In addition to his groundbreaking work, Milton Feng has given nearly 300 conference talks, published almost as many papers, and given over 40 U.S. patents. (1-2)
Feng has received numerous awards for his work, including the Ford Aerospace Corporate Technology Outstanding Principal Investigator Award, IEEE David Sarnoff Award, and the Pan Wen Yuan Outstanding Research Award in Microelectronics. In addition, he was chosen as the first Nick Holoyonak Chair Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois for his work. (2)