Shaffique Adam Receives Singapore National Research Foundation Fellowship

Shaffique Adam, an NRC Postdoctoral Research Associate in the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, has been awarded a 2012 Singapore National Research Foundation (NRF) Fellowship. The Fellowship provides an opportunity for a small number of "brilliant young researchers from all over the world to carry out independent research" in Singapore, and includes a five-year research grant totaling approximately $3 million to support research on a topic of the Fellow's choice. The NRF Fellowship is a globally competitive program, open to all nationalities, aimed at recruiting outstanding young scientists and researchers to conduct independent research in Singapore. Ten fellows were chosen out of 120 applicants from all areas of science and technology, including life sciences, physical sciences, computer science, and engineering.

Shaffique received a B.S. in Physics from Stanford University, with departmental honors and a university distinction, and a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from Cornell University, where he studied the properties of nanoscale magnetic materials. Prior to joining the CNST, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Physics at the University of Maryland, College Park. At the CNST, Shaffique has worked with NIST Fellow Mark Stiles on theoretical studies of the physical mechanisms at play in a variety of technologically important nanomaterials, including graphene and topological insulators. His research seeks to understand these systems, and also to find a pathway to control their behavior in order to enable the development of future electronic devices. Shaffique has published over 30 manuscripts in prominent journals, including Nature, Nature Physics, the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, and Physical Review Letters.

In July, Shaffique will join the inaugural faculty of Yale-NUS College as an Assistant Professor of Science, with a joint appointment in the Department of Physics at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Yale-NUS College is a joint project of Yale University and NUS, designed to create a twenty-first century model of undergraduate liberal arts and sciences education for Asia that draws on the best elements of the American liberal arts tradition.