KENNESAW, Ga. | Aug 23, 2021

Kennesaw State University’s Office of Research is gearing up to launch the fourth season of its Research with Relevance – Friday Features series, this time spotlighting the research of four deans throughout the fall semester.

Launched as a weekly webcast during the Spring 2020 semester, Research with Relevance – Friday Features has served as a venue for KSU faculty from across the university to discuss a variety of research topics and field questions from an audience participating virtually. This semester, the event will be held in a hybrid format, with guests invited to attend the talk in-person or join live video streams on Microsoft Teams and KSUTV.

The new Deans’ Showcase series will launch on Friday, Aug. 27 at 4 p.m., featuring Southern Polytechnic College of Engineering and Engineering Technology Dean Ian Ferguson. During the show, Vice President for Research Phaedra Corso will interview Ferguson about his research endeavors, followed by a question-and-answer period with the live and virtual audiences. Guests who wish to participate in-person are invited to attend the talk in the Engineering Technology Center Room Q202 on the Marietta Campus.

Ferguson, who joined KSU in 2019, is an electrical engineer, physicist and materials science researcher. He strives to find innovations in emerging materials that bring new functionality to devices, rather than producing more complicated devices with established materials. His broad-based research interests focus on building interdisciplinary teams of faculty and students to use compound semiconductor materials and devices for applications in the areas of sensors, illumination, and energy harvesting.

Ferguson’s work has moved toward creating compound semiconductors and materials in devices that can operate at room temperature within the field of spintronics, known as quantum information at room temperature or “QI@RT” for short. This is a nascent field which has applications for new information-processing technologies, such as quantum computing. These new technologies have the promising capability of processing massive data with extremely low power consumption.

For more information on the talk and for information on future guests, visit: https://research.kennesaw.edu/roc/researchwithrelevance/index.php.

—  Jacob Segura

---

A leader in innovative teaching and learning, Kennesaw State University offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees to its more than 47,000 students. Kennesaw State is a member of the University System of Georgia with 11 academic colleges. The university’s vibrant campus culture, diverse population, strong global ties and entrepreneurial spirit draw students from throughout the country and the world. Kennesaw State is a Carnegie-designated doctoral research institution (R2), placing it among an elite group of only 7 percent of U.S. colleges and universities with an R1 or R2 status. For more information, visit kennesaw.edu.