Jonathan E Spanier, Ph.D.,
Jonathan E Spanier, Ph.D., Associate Dean, College of Engineering, Professor of Engineering and Physics, Drexel University
Dr. Spanier is an academic innovator, Professor of Materials Science & Engineering, of Electrical Engineering, and of Physics, and Associate Dean of Engineering at Drexel University. In addition to leading communications and strategic planning in the College and his teaching, Spanier directs a laboratory investigating how light interacts with new and emergent electronic and dielectric materials and their film growth, with applications in information and communications technologies, and renewable energy. Previously he served as director of the University’s Centralized Research Facilities, a regional core shared instrumentation resource serving hundreds of academic, federal and industry users annually. Earlier in his career he held staff scientist positions at the Naval Research Laboratory and in the semiconductor industry.
Dr. Spanier is an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society, and he received the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers at the White House, the U.S. Army Research Office Young Investigator Award, and the Distinguished Service Award from the Louis R Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation. He was an invited participant at the National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering, and he was a Louis and Bessie Stein Family Fellow in Israel, and a National Institute for Communications Technologies-sponsored visiting scientist at Fujitsu, Ltd. in Japan. Dr. Spanier has been invited to present his work at numerous universities and colleges, international conferences, multinational corporations, including at five academic institutions in Israel, and his current research is supported in part by a collaborative grant from the U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation. He is proud of his former graduate and undergraduate student and postdoctoral mentees including technology entrepreneurs, emerging leaders in industry, and nine who are now tenure-track/tenured faculty and join him in educating future generations of scientists and engineers. A recipient of the Avoda Award, Dr. Spanier earned the Ph.D. in applied physics at Columbia University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in physical chemistry at Harvard University.