Pasayat and Gupta receive 2024 Early Career Innovator Awards

The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research (OVCR) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has chosen ECE Assistant Professors Shubhra Pasayat and Chirag Gupta to receive 2024 Early Career Innovator Awards. The awards recognize early career faculty for engaging in technology transfer and commercialization activities and transforming their research discoveries into inventions for the public good.

This year, OVCR selected four researchers across UW-Madison for the honor. Each has multiple disclosures and inventions accepted for commercialization and was selected from a list of finalists decided by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF). They will each receive $50,000 in funding.

Pasayat develops high purity semiconductor films for use in microscale devices with applications in defense, energy conversion and consumer electronics. She has co-founded and serves as the chief technology officer of Ingantec corporation, a startup which is developing and commercializing visible micro-LED solutions for next generation display technology based on technology she co-invented. Her research group is looking to solve emerging societal challenges related to high-speed communications for 6G and beyond, as well as light emitting sources spanning the ultraviolet to near infrared range.

Gupta develops nitride semiconductors which have found numerous applications in both commercial (such as visible and UV LEDs, power supplies, fast phone chargers) as well as the defense sector (radars, lasers). The goal of his research is to develop commercialization compatible solutions to serve the emerging technological needs in the area of energy efficiency, wireless communications and extreme environment electronics. He is co-founder and currently serves as the chief scientific officer of Ingantec.

“These early career inventors embody the Wisconsin Idea by bringing their discoveries to market, and we are excited to see where their transformative discoveries and future innovations will lead,” says Cynthia Czajkowski, interim vice chancellor for research. “Recognizing early career faculty for their entrepreneurship is one way we elevate the rich history of UW–Madison researchers and discoveries leading to innovations for the public good.”

Joao Reboucas Dorea, assistant professor of precision agriculture and data analytics and Reinier Hernandez, assistant professor of medical physics also received the award.

To read more about the 2024 Early Career Innovator Awards, click here.