Professor Yicheng Lu, Professor II and Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been appointed as the Paul S. and Mary W. Monroe Endowed Faculty Scholar in recognition of his outstanding contributions to research and to the School of Engineering as Chair of ECE.

This endowed chair was established by Mr. Paul S. Monroe, who received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1940 from Rutgers University. Professor Lu has been appointed for a 5-year, renewal, term and is entitled to a research fund, as well as the use of the title in all correspondence and listings of his name.

Professor Lu is very well known around the world for his pioneering work in Zinc oxide (ZnO), which has been emerging as an important wide energy bandgap semiconductor, and as a promising multifunctional material due to its great potential applications in information technology, biotechnology, and nanoscale science and engineering. Today, ZnO has become one of the major highly visible research fields in advanced materials and devices, with thousands of publications each year. Prof. Lu is internationally known as one of the leaders in ZnO research. He has demonstrated outstanding achievements in this area, including materials, nanostructures, and novel devices. Professor Lu's papers have been very well cited. For example, "the number of citations your article (for ZnO Schottky photodetector) received places it in the top 1% within its field according to Essential Science IndicatorsSM". Dr. Lu also has given over 200 conference presentations, including many invited talks at MRS, EMC, SPIE, ICONN, and other conferences, as well as invited lectures at international universities. 16 U.S. patents have been awarded to him. His inventions in the ZnO and SAW device areas were selected and presented at the "2002 World's Best Technologies" conference, as being among the top 20 Government sponsored inventions.

In addition to being an active researcher, Prof. Lu's is an outstanding educator. He has established himself as a model to integrate research with teaching. 21 Ph.D. and 12 M.S. students of Electrical Engineering and Materials Science have received their degrees under his direction. He is also a very able administrator, as demonstrated by outstanding achievements by the department under his leadership.

Professor Lu received the 1993 Warren I. Susman Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest teaching award at Rutgers. In 1994 he received the Rutgers University Board of Trustees Research Fellowship award for Scholarly Excellence. He was one of the two recipients of the Rutgers Teacher-Scholar award in 2002. Prof. Lu also received the IEEE Outstanding Student Counselor and Advisor Award in 1995. His accomplishments as an educator are also reflected by the achievements of his students. Many of his students have received prestigious awards and honors nationwide, including Rhodes Scholar, NSF Graduate Fellowship, National Research Council Fellowship, USA-TODAY All-USA College First Academic Team (one of the top 20 college students in the USA) and Third Academic Team (one of the top 60 college students in the USA), Materials Research Society (MRS) Honor List for Outstanding Undergraduate Research. Four of his graduate students received Outstanding Student Paper Awards in international conferences.