Narayan, Allbritton named NAI Fellows

The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has named Dr. Jagdish Narayan, John C. C. Fan Distinguished Chair in Materials Science and Engineering at North Carolina State University, and Dr. Nancy Allbritton, professor and chair of the Joint NC State/UNC Department of Biomedical Engineering, as 2014 NAI Fellows.

The National Academy of Inventors was founded in 2010 to recognize and encourage inventors with patents issued from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, enhance the visibility of academic technology and innovation, encourage the disclosure of intellectual property, educate and mentor innovative students and translate the inventions of its members to benefit society.

Narayan invented domain matching epitaxy for thin film growth across the misfit scale, nanostructured efficient light emitting diodes and lasers, supersaturated semiconductor alloys for efficient p-n junctions in current microelectronic and nanoelectronic devices, laser diffused solar cells and metal–ceramic nanocomposites for next-generation devices and automobile systems. He also developed integrated smart sensors and 3D self-assembled nanostructures with oriented magnetic nanodots for information storage, which was hailed by the National Science Foundation as one of the Scientific Breakthroughs of 2004.

He received a B.S. (Distinction) in metallurgy from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1969; an M.S. in materials science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1970; and a Ph.D. in materials science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1971. He joined NC State in 1984 after serving at Oak Ridge National Lab as senior scientist and group leader for more than a dozen years.

Allbritton invented analytical techniques with accompanying instrumentation to perform single-cell biochemical assays for both biomedical research and clinical diagnostics. She also pioneered a new strategy to separate single cells using arrayed-based platforms. Her technologies formed the basis for three start-up companies valued at over $300 million.

She received a B.S. in physics from Louisiana State University in 1979, an M.D. from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1985 and a Ph.D. in medical physics/medical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987.

Two other NC State faculty members – Dr. Jerome Cuomo, Distinguished Research Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Dr. David Aspnes, Distinguished University Professor and Alumni Distinguished Graduate Professor in the Department of Physics – are NAI Fellows.