Alumna Prineha Narang (BS ‘11) was named, at the age of 28, to the 2018 Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the category of Science for her work on atom-by-atom quantum engineering. She currently serves as Assistant Professor of Computational Materials Science at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University.
According to the Forbes profile, “Quantum-engineered materials are created by atom-by-atom engineering to enable highly energy efficient devices. This has applications, from consumer electronics to space-systems and satellites. Professor Narang's research explores the processes behind these materials in order to develop quantum materials applications from consumer electronics to space-systems and satellites.”
Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard, Prineha came to the university as a Ziff Environmental Fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Environment to explore the new field of excited state quantum materials and devices. After receiving her BS at Drexel, she obtained an MS and PhD in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where her work focused on understanding light-matter interactions in areas ranging from quantum plasmonics to nitride optoelectronics.
While a Drexel Materials student, Prineha worked under the mentorship of Distinguished University and Charles T. & Ruth M. Bach Professor Yury Gogotsi in the Nanomaterials Group, and received numerous Drexel University awards for her academic and extracurricular achievements, as well as a DAAD-RISE Research Internship, and NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.