Paul Berger, PhD

Biography:

Paul R. Berger is a Professor in Electrical & Computer Engineering at Ohio State University and Physics (by Courtesy). He is also a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Tampere University in Finland. He received the B.S.E. in engineering physics, and the M.S.E. and Ph.D. (1990) in electrical engineering, respectively, all from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Currently, Dr. Berger is actively working on quantum tunneling devices, printable semiconductor devices & circuits for IoT, bioelectronics, novel devices, novel semiconductors and applied physics.

Formerly, he worked at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ (1990-’92) and taught at the University of Delaware in Electrical and Computer Engineering (1992-2000). In 1999, Prof. Berger took a sabbatical leave while working first at the Max-Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany and then moved on to Cambridge Display Technology, Ltd., Cambridge, United Kingdom. In 2008, Prof. Berger spent an extended sabbatical leave at IMEC (Interuniversity Microelectronics Center) in Leuven, Belgium while appointed as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Prof. Berger was also a Finnish Distinguished Professor (FiDiPro) at Tampere University of Technology (2014-2019), and he continues as a Fulbright-Nokia Distinguished Chair in Information and Communications Technologies (2020-2022) [https://engineering.osu.edu/news/2020/04/berger-earns-fulbright-nokia-d… the newly merged Tampere University. 

He has authored over 240 referred publications and presentations with another ~100 plenary, keynote, invited talks, 5 book sections and been issued 25 patents with 3 more pending from 60+ disclosures with a Google Scholar H-index of 35. Some notable recognitions for Dr. Berger were an NSF CAREER Award (1996), a DARPA ULTRA Sustained Excellence Award (1998), Lumley Research Awards (2006, 2011), a Faculty Diversity Excellence Award (2009) and Outstanding Engineering Educator for State of Ohio (2014). He has been on the Program and Advisory Committees of numerous conferences, including the IEDM, DRC, ISDRS, EDTM and IFETC meetings. He will be hosting the IFETC in ’21 as General Chair. He currently is the Chair of the Columbus IEEE EDS/Photonics Chapter and Faculty Advisor to Ohio State’s IEEE Student Chapter. In addition, he is an elected member-at-large to the IEEE EDS Board of Governors (19’-21’), where he is also Vice Present of Strategic Directions (20’-21’) and a member of the EDS Finance Committee.

He is an IEEE EDS Fellow (2011) and Distinguished Lecturer (since 2011), as well as a Senior member of the Optical Society of America. He has received $9.9M in USA funding as lead PI, with an additional $26M as Co-PI in USA and €8.8M in funding through his Finnish partnerships. Altogether, he has received ~$47.5M in research funding.

Prof. Berger has established significant humanitarian engineering projects across the world with an emphasis on solar-power and sustainability. After completing a 6 year presence in Haiti to electrify remote schools with solar powered LED lighting as an Alternative Spring Break, Berger re-established two new international programs. (1) One through OSU’s Office of International Affairs, has traveled to Arusha, Tanzania with a group of engineering students from different majors to design, build and install a solar powered LED lighting system for an orphanage. [https://ece.osu.edu/news/2019/08/solar-engineering-service-trip-harness…]; and (2) Additionally, through IEEE’s Humanitarian Activities Committee, Berger also proposed, and was funded, to provide solar-powered desalinization for the indigenous Wayúu peoples living in the Guajira peninsula desert. Also, the IEEE Electron Device Society has provided Berger additional funds to extend the Colombia project into 2020. [https://ece.osu.edu/news/2019/01/ece-professor-triggers-solar-solution-…].

 Berger has been a great advocate of undergraduate research, particularly emphasizing many women, minorities and veterans. He has recruited and trained a total 125 undergraduate researchers, which he is actively advising or graduated to completion over his academic career. For instance, since joining Ohio State University in 2000, he is, or has, advised 96 undergraduate researchers. From within these 96 active or alumni students, 26 are women (27%); 8 are minorities (8.3%) and 30 have gone on to complete or pursue a Ph.D. (31.6%) with an additional 3 having become medical doctors or patent attorneys. Some former REUs are now professors at Stanford and Rochester Institute of Technology. Berger was also awarded the Faculty Diversity Excellence Award (2009) for these efforts and will continue to aggressively recruit diversity.