Xu Zhang
Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Courtesy Appointment, Mechanical Engineering
Xu Zhang is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. He joined CMU in 2019 as a tenure-track assistant professor. Before joining CMU, he worked as an Argonne Scholar at Argonne National Laboratory (2018–2019) and as a postdoctoral associate at MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories (2017–2018). He earned his Ph.D. and M.S. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT and his B.S. in physics from the University of Science and Technology of China.
His research interests include advanced electronic and photonic devices based on emerging nanomaterials. Current research directions span extreme transistor scaling in the “silicon-impossible” territory, high frequency electronics, neuromorphic computing for AI hardware and tunable photonic devices, with applications across computing, energy, communications and sensing. His work has been recognized with numerous awards including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2023), MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 (Global list, 2022), MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 (China list, 2019), Enrico Fermi Fellowship (2018), MIT Global Fellowship (2014), and MIT Presidential Fellowship (2010).
Education
Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
M.S., Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
B.S., Physics, University of Science and Technology of China
Research Interests
Media mentions
CMU Engineering
Zhang receives NSF CAREER Award
Xu Zhang received an NSF career grant for his work on device fabrication and system-level applications of atomically thin 2D materials.
MIT Technology Review
Joshi, Zhang named to MIT Technology Review’s “Innovators Under 35” list
ECE’s Gauri Joshi and Xu Zhang have been named to the MIT Technology Review’s 2022 class of “Innovators Under 35” list, which recognizes the brightest young minds working to tackle today’s biggest technology hurdles.
Scott Institute
CMU Engineering faculty awarded Scott Institute seed grants
Eight research projects lead by CMU Engineering faculty have been awarded 2020 Seed Grants for Energy Research by the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation.