Nitin Samarth

Nitin Samarth is the Verne M. Willaman Professor of Physics & Professor of Materials Science/Engineering at Pennsylvania State University. From 1992-1998 he was Assistant Professor of Physics at PSU, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1998 and to Professor in 2001.

Samarth has pioneered the epitaxial synthesis and nanopatterning of a variety of spin-based quantum materials, derived from both conventional and magnetic semiconductors and ferromagnetic metals, resulting in fundamental advances in semiconductor spintronics, frustrated magnetic arrays and the application of topological insulators to spintronics. He has published 258 papers with about 10,900 citations. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a recipient of PSU’s Faculty Scholar Medal in the Physical Sciences and received an Outstanding Physics Alumnus Award from Purdue University.

He conducted post-doctoral research as a Research Associate and Assistant Faculty Fellow at the University of Notre Dame under Professor Jacek Furdyna (1986-1992). He received this Ph.D. in Physics from Purdue University, also under the direction of Professor Jacek Furdyna (1980-1986).