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CORVALLIS, Ore. – The National Science Foundation has recognized a new engineering faculty member at Oregon State University with a prestigious CAREER Award, which carries grant support of $400,000 for future research.

Pallavi Dhagat, an assistant professor in the OSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, will use the funding to develop new magnetic devices for information storage and sensor applications. The research addresses a need for inexpensive and robust data storage, a challenge fueled by the increasing use of portable consumer electronics.

“This research should help us understand a lot of new physics, which will lead to new sensor and information storage devices,” Dhagat said.

The College of Engineering has had several CAREER Award winners among its new faculty in recent years, a reflection of efforts to attract talented new engineering faculty to the university that could ultimately lead to new companies in Oregon, said Ron Adams, dean of the college.

Dhagat holds a doctoral degree from Washington University in St. Louis, and is an expert in perpendicular recording technology, information storage, magnetization dynamics, magnetic nano-metrology, bio-magnetic sensors and distributed sensor systems.

The CAREER award is the NSF's most prestigious award for new faculty members, designed to recognize and support the early career-development activities of the academic leaders of the future.