Alex Hanson of Texas ECE has been named a recipient of a Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) award from The Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) for his work on "Compact Pulsed Power Systems Using GaN Devices and High-Efficiency Magnetic Structures."

AFOSR announced it will award approximately $16.2 million in grants to 36 scientists and engineers from 30 research institutions and businesses who submitted winning research proposals through the YIP program.

The objective of this program is to foster creative basic research in science and engineering, enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators, and increase opportunities for the young investigators to recognize the Air Force mission and the related challenges in science and engineering.

Alex J. Hanson is an Assistant Professor and a Fellow of the Jack Kilby/Texas Instruments Endowed Faculty Fellowship in Computer Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin.

He received the B.E. degree in electrical engineering from Dartmouth College in 2014 and the S.M. and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2016 and 2019 respectively.  His research interests include component- and system-level power electronics with emphasis on high-frequency magnetics and circuits.  He is also interested in leveraging power and energy in diverse applications like medicine, aerospace, etc.

He received the William Portnoy prize paper award from the IAS-PEDCC in 2016.