Mark J. Kushner receives Stephen S. Attwood Award from College of Engineering

Professor Mark J. Kushner received the Stephen S. Attwood Award, the most prestigious award that the College of Engineering bestows, in recognition of his “extraordinary achievement in teaching, research, service, and other activities that have brought distinction to the College and University.”

Prof. Kushner is the George I. Haddad Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and holds appointments in Nuclear Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Applied Physics. He is the Director of both the Michigan Institute of Plasma Science and Engineering (MIPSE) and the Department of Energy Plasma Science Center.

MIPSE, which Kushner developed, supports education, research and outreach on plasmas across disciplines. MIPSE offers student fellowships and a graduate certificate program, sponsors seminars and an annual graduate symposium, and coordinates projects to attract greater research funding and resources.

“We are seeing a lot more active collaboration,” says Paul Drake, Henry S. Carhart Collegiate Professor of Space Sciences. “Especially among the more junior faculty in plasma science, and I attribute this largely to MIPSE.”

The DOE Plasma Science Center, also under Prof. Kushner’s direction, is made up of 10 institutions, including the University of Michigan, and focuses its research on the fundamental processes in low-temperature plasmas, which are ultimately used in society-benefitting technologies, including environemntal and energy applications, materials processing, biomedical procedures and agriculture.

Prof. Kushner is recognized as an international leader in modeling low-temperature plasmas, plasma chemistry and plasma surface interactions, and is regularly sought out by industry for his expertise. He leads the Computational Plasma Science and Engineering Group (CPSEG). To date, Prof. Kushner has graduated 38 PhD students.

Prof. Kushner has received several awards from professional societies, including the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the International Plasma Chemistry Society (IPCS), the American Vacuum Society (AVS) and the American Physical Society (APS), as well as from industry associations (Semiconductor Research Corp. and Semiconductor Industry Association). He is also a Fellow of these societies and of the Optical Society of American and Institute of Physics. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Prof. Kushner served as editor-in-chief of Plasma Sources Science and Technology from 2007-2013.

Prof. Kushner received his MS and Ph.D. degrees in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1977 and 1979. He worked in national labs and in industry before joining the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1986, where he was the Founder Professor of Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He served as Dean of Engineering at Iowa State University in 2005, before joining the University of Michigan in 2008.