Distinguished Professor Alexander Balandin Appointed to Fang Lu Endowed Chair in Engineering

Alexander Balandin, a distinguished professor of materials science and engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, has been named to hold the Fang Lu Endowed Chair in Engineering. 

Established in 2018 by a gift of $500,000 from triple Bruin engineer Fang Lu M.S. ’88, Engr. ’89, Ph.D. ’92, the endowed chair was matched with another $500,000 from the Samueli Foundation. As a graduate student, Lu was a member of the Integrated Circuits and Systems Lab led by Henry Samueli, then a professor of electrical engineering and now the school’s namesake.

“I am grateful to Fang Lu for his continued generous support of our faculty and students,” said Ah-Hyung “Alissa” Park, the Ronald and Valerie Sugar Dean of Engineering. “He has been a tremendous partner, and with the appointment of Alexander Balandin to the chair, we will build upon our existing synergy to reach new heights in engineering education and research.”

After completing his doctorate, Lu became one of the first full-time employees of Broadcom Corporation co-founded by Samueli. The company would eventually become Broadcom, Inc., a global leader in semiconductors and software development. As its longtime technical director, Lu has been involved in nearly every major scientific advancement at the company. 

Since his graduation from UCLA, Lu has remained engaged with his alma mater, making philanthropic investments over the years across a variety of engineering disciplines and purposes to support the school. His other major gifts to UCLA Samueli have created two graduate student fellowships, an optics and quantum electronics research lab in Engineering VI, and most recently, a gift of $1 million to establish endowed research funds in the bioengineering and electrical and computer engineering departments.

“I am continuously inspired by the faculty at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, and the groundbreaking research they conduct,” said Lu, explaining why he has chosen to stay involved. “My engineering education at UCLA, especially my interactions and relationships with the faculty, ultimately led to my successful career.”

Balandin is widely recognized for his pioneering research across materials science, nanotechnology, electronics, phononics and optical spectroscopy. The unique thermal properties of graphene — sheets of carbon just one atom thick — discovered by Balandin have led to the material’s first applications in thermal management of electronics. He is currently researching low-dimensional quantum materials, electronic noise and advanced spectroscopy techniques to characterize materials, as well as developing new electronic, optical and energy-conversion devices.

He leads the Phonon Optimized Engineered Materials Laboratory and the Brillouin–Mandelstam Spectroscopy Laboratory in the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. He also serves as the Materials Science and Engineering Department’s vice chair for graduate education. 

“I am continuously inspired by the faculty at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, and the groundbreaking research they conduct,” said Fang Lu.

Balandin has received numerous national and international honors for his breakthroughs, including the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Defense, the MRS Medal from the Materials Research Society, the Pioneer of Nanotechnology Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Brillouin Medal from the International Phononics Society.

He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, MRS, IEEE, the Optical Society of America, SPIE — the international society for optics and photonics, the Institute of Physics and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has supervised more than 40 doctoral students.

Balandin joined UCLA Samueli in 2023, after more than two decades on the faculty of UC Riverside, where he was a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering, the founding chair of the Materials Science and Engineering Program, the director of Nano-Fab and held a UC Presidential Chair. Balandin is the second holder of the Fang Lu Endowed Chair. Bahram Jalali, a professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering, held the chair from 2020 until his retirement in 2022.