Duke researcher to help shape Army S&T investments

By Jenna Brady, ARL Public AffairsMarch 20, 2015

Duke researcher to help shape Army S&T investments
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ADELPHI, Md. (March 20, 2015) -- To help further its mission of discovering, innovating and transitioning science and technology to ensure dominant strategic land power, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory recently welcomed back Dr. April Brown, the John Cocke Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University.

"I am very happy to be back at the Army Research Office and to be part of the ARL family once again. I am particularly excited that I have the opportunity to utilize the experiences that I have gained since being at ARO in the late 80s to advance ESD basic research and the ultimate impact these research findings have on the Army," Brown said.

Brown was hired through ARL's first science and technology Intergovernmental Personnel Agreement, which provides for the temporary assignment of personnel between the federal government and state and local governments, colleges and universities, and other eligible organizations.

Brown will serve as ARL's senior research scientist for engineering sciences at ARO, located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. She previously served as a program manager in the Physics Division at ARO from 1988 to 1989. In this position, Brown will be the chief scientific leader in defining the strategy of the Army's extramural basic research program in the engineering sciences, providing the key scientific leadership in identifying, shaping and driving critical research opportunities and programs.

Specifically, Brown will provide support to the ARL sciences for lethality and protection, materials research, science for maneuver, extramural basic research campaigns, as well as to the Army Capabilities Integration Center mobile, protected platforms, improved lethality and aviation lines of effort.

"Dr. Brown will play a pivotal role in helping to refocus programs in both electronics and materials science to maximize opportunity-driven basic science. Her expertise and experience in these areas should help us move forward into new and exciting areas of research," said Dr. Tom Doligalski, director of the Engineering Sciences Directorate at ARO.

More importantly, Doligalski said, Brown will play a key role in identifying crucial areas for future basic-research investment in the engineering sciences, and will provide technical advice in terms of hiring actions.

"The Engineering Sciences Directorate has numerous program manager vacancies, and it is hoped that Dr. Brown will serve as a recruitment attraction for potential candidates for these hiring actions," added Doligalski.

Brown's research focus is on the synthesis and design of electronic materials enabling a range of Army-relevant electronic and optoelectronic devices.

"New electronic materials have been a primary driver for the development of new devices, advancing critical functions such as communications and computing. The ultimate exploitation of these new materials and devices provides significant advantages in key Army-relevant systems," said Brown.

Brown received her bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1981 from North Carolina State University and her master's degree and doctorate in electrical engineering from Cornell University in 1984 and 1985, respectively.

She started her career as an assistant professor at the University of Michigan in 1985 and joined the Hughes Research Laboratories in 1986 as a member of the technical staff.

When Brown left HRL in 1994, she held the position of senior scientist after holding the position of section head from 1989 to 1991.

Brown then joined Georgia Tech as an associate professor in 1994 and held the position of the Pettit Professor in Microelectronics when she left in 2002 to join Duke. She also served as associate dean in the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech from 1999 to 2001 and executive assistant to the president from 2001 to 2002.

Brown served as department chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke from 2002 to 2006 and senior associate dean for research from 2007 to 2011.

She is currently the John Cocke Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University and holds a secondary appointment in biomedical engineering.

She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

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