Dr. Dean P. Neikirk is a Professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, and holds the Cullen Trust for Higher Education Endowed Professorship in Engineering.

He received a B.S. degree in physics and mathematics from Oklahoma State University in 1979, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in applied physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1981 and 1984, respectively. He has been a member of the faculty in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin since 1984. Dr. Neikirk also developed the teaching laboratory for semiconductor device fabrication at The University of Texas at Austin, and is an active member of The University of Texas at Austin Microelectronics Research Center.

Dr. Neikirk’s current research interests concentrate on the fabrication and modeling of electromagnetic and micromachined devices, primarily for use as sensors and transducers. His work also includes projects involving microfluidic systems for chemical sensing, micromachined infrared detectors, civil structure health monitoring, semiconductor devices, IC packaging, and high frequency properties of transmission lines. Neikirk’s research group concentrates on the use of advanced fabrication techniques, including silicon micromachining, for new device development. Neikirk developed the first monolithic, high resolution imaging antenna array for use at 300 GHz, received the 1984 Marconi International Fellowship Young Scientist Award for “for contributions to the development of millimeter wave integrated circuits especially in the area of detectors and imaging arrays,” and a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1986 for research into the fabrication of new integrated micro-electromagnetic structures