Deji Akinwande, Texas ECE Associate Professor, has received the Friedrich Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The award is presented to internationally renowned academics from outside Germany in recognition of their outstanding accomplishments in research to date and their exceptional promise for future endeavors. The Humboldt Foundation grants about 20 Bessel Research Awards annually to international scholars in all academic fields. Akinwande was honored for his contributions to the research and development of graphene and 2D Nanoscience towards flexible and low-power nanotechnology applications. Akinwande is the second person in the department to receive the award within the past two years. Mikhail Belkin (Misha) received the award in 2015.

Akinwande is the recipient of the David & Doris Lybarger Endowed Faculty Fellowship in Engineering and a past recipient of fellowships from the Ford Foundation and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. He was also presented with the 2016 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. He has been awarded the inaugural IEEE Nano Geim and Novoselov Graphene Prize, the NSF CAREER award, the Army and DTRA Young Investigator awards, and the 3M Nontenured Faculty Award. His work on flexible graphene systems was selected as among the "best of 2012" by the nanotechweb online technology news portal and has been featured on MIT's technology review.