Dr. Robinson is a professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University with a focus on the synthesis and properties of 2D materials. He received his B.S. in Physics from Towson University in 2001, and PhD from Penn State in 2005. Following a Post-doctoral fellowship at the Naval Research Lab, he returned to Penn State as a research professor in the Applied Research Laboratory in 2007. Subsequently, Prof. Robinson joined MatSE in 2012 as an Assistant professor, promoted to Assoc. Prof. in 2016, and Full Prof. in 2020. He co-founded the Center for Two-Dimensional and Layered Materials in 2013, and currently serves as Associate Director of the Center. In July 2015, he co-founded the NSF I/UCRC Center for Atomically Thin Multifunctional Coatings (ATOMIC), and in 2016 he became the Director of User Programs for the NSF-funded 2D Crystal Consortium.
Research Description
Prof. Robinson is interested in process/property/performance relationships in 2D materials for a variety of applications, including high-frequency electronics, quantum computing, quantum communications, chemical/biological sensing, catalysis and energy storage, and beyond silicon CMOS applications. His group focuses on a vertically integrated approach to making and understanding 2D materials grown via chemical vapor deposition, and they developed a new process to stabilize traditionally 3D materials in 2D form, dubbed confinement heteroepitaxy (CHet). Prof. Robinson has published > 250 research articles (see Google Scholar for up-to-date info), presented >150 invited talks, and has garnered a variety of honors and awards. Beyond numbers, Prof. Robinson is super proud of his research group members – they are the ones that enable all the success!