Mark C. Hersam is the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Director of the Materials Research Center at Northwestern University. He also holds faculty appointments in the Departments of Chemistry, Applied Physics, Medicine, and Electrical Engineering. He earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 1996, M.Phil. in Physics from the University of Cambridge (UK) in 1997, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from UIUC in 2000. His research interests include nanomaterials, nanomanufacturing, scanning probe microscopy, nanoelectronic devices, biosensors, and renewable energy. Dr. Hersam is highly engaged in education and outreach at all levels including regularly giving public lectures, participating in the Northwestern University All-Scout Nano Day, serving as the Director of the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Research Experience for Undergraduates Program for 12 years, and developing the Materials Science Exhibit in partnership with the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. Dr. Hersam has received several honors including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, TMS Robert Lansing Hardy Award, AVS Peter Mark Award, MRS Outstanding Young Investigator, U.S. Science Envoy, MacArthur Fellowship, and eight Teacher of the Year Awards. An elected member of the National Academy of Inventors, Dr. Hersam has founded two companies, NanoIntegris and Volexion, which are commercial suppliers of nanoelectronic and battery materials, respectively. Dr. Hersam is a Fellow of MRS, AVS, APS, AAAS, SPIE, and IEEE, and also serves as an Associate Editor of ACS Nano.
Hersam is a fourth-generation Chicagoan who grew up in a southwestern suburb called Downers Grove, which is located relatively close to Argonne National Laboratory and Fermilab where he participated in science outreach activities as a high school student. An avid outdoorsman, Mark spent much of his youth camping and backpacking with his family and through scouting, where he earned the rank of Eagle Scout. He graduated from Downers Grove South High School in 1993, where he was an individual conference golf champion and was later honored as a Class of 2016 Distinguished Alumni. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an undergraduate, where he performed undergraduate research with Professor David Ruzic in the Nuclear Engineering Department and Professor Joseph Lyding in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. In addition to science, Professor Ruzic and Professor Lyding schooled Mark on the racquetball court and basketball court, respectively. After a short stint working at Argonne National Laboratory on surface acoustic wave sensors, Mark traveled to the University of Cambridge in the UK, where he earned a Master of Philosophy in Microelectronic Engineering and Semiconductor Physics under the guidance of Professor Mark Welland. In addition to being humbled on the squash court by Professor Welland, Mark joined the Churchill College Boat Club, where he regularly rowed on the River Cam. Mark then returned to the University of Illinois for his PhD, where he was advised by Professor Joseph Lyding and also worked closely with Professor Jeff Moore and Professor Karl Hess in the Beckman Institute on the chemical functionalization of silicon surfaces. During his PhD, Mark spent an extended internship working with Dr. Phaedon Avouris on multi-walled carbon nanotubes at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. Immediately following his PhD in June of 2000, he was married to his wife Sue in an outdoor ceremony in the Fu Dog Garden at Allerton Park, honeymooned in Costa Rica, and then moved to Evanston where he began his tenure-track faculty position at Northwestern University. Mark and Sue have two precocious daughters, Angie and Abby, who were born in 2006 and 2009, respectively. The Hersam family enjoys traveling and a diverse array of outdoor activities including biking, hiking, roller blading, and kayaking.
Research Description
Low-Dimensional Nanoelectronic Materials
The Hersam Research Group specializes in the synthesis, purification, functionalization, and application of low-dimensional nanoelectronic materials including monodisperse carbon nanotubes, graphene, plasmonic nanoparticles, transition metal dichalcogenides, hexagonal boron nitride, black phosphorus, and borophene. Surface chemical functionalization allows further tunability over the properties of these low-dimensional nanoelectronic materials including self-assembled monolayers on epitaxial graphene, covalent functionalization of graphene epoxide, monolayer molybdenum disulfide, graphene nanoribbons on germanium, surface passivation of black phosphorus, and organic-borophene heterostructures. The integration of these diverse materials into mixed-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures enables significant advances in diverse applications including thin-film transistors, memristors, transparent conductors, photovoltaics, batteries, biosensors, and quantum computing. In addition to fundamental studies, the Hersam Research Group commercializes low-dimensional nanoelectronic materials through scalable nanomanufacturing methods such as continuous flow solution processing and a range of printing methods encompassing inkjet, aerosol jet, gravure, screen, and 3D printing.