Prof. Seth Bank of Texas ECE has been named a recipient of the 2021 Dads' Association Centennial Teaching Fellowship. Established by the University of Texas System Board of Regents in 1983, the fellowships recognize faculty who are actively engaged in the instruction of freshman undergraduates. This award recognizes Bank’s excellence in teaching and his commitment to undergraduate education. 

“As much as I love my other teaching assignments, I’ve found the first semester freshman EE course to be the most rewarding teaching experience because it offers the most profound opportunity to shape their thinking about (and approach to) electrical engineering," said Bank. "It’s really inspiring to watch students grow and blossom in that first semester.”

Dr. Seth Bank is a professor and holds the Cullen Trust for Higher Education Endowed Professorship in Engineering #6 in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin.

His current research interests are centered on the molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth of analog/digital alloy semiconductors (e.g. AlInAsSb) and metal/semiconductor hetero- and nano-structures (e.g. ErAs nanoparticles in GaAs) and their application to plasmonics, silicon-based lasers, avalanche photodiodes, mid-IR lasers, sensors, THz generation and sensing, and high-speed transistors. He has coauthored >350 papers and presentations in these areas.

His group has received 5 Best Paper Awards and he has received the 2008 Young Investigator Award at the North American MBE Conference (NAMBE), a 2008 Young Faculty Award from DARPA, the 2009 Young Scientist Award from the International Symposium on Compound Semiconductors (ISCS), a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2009 (nominated by ARO), an AFOSR Young Investigator Program (YIP) Award in 2009, an ONR Young Investigator Program (YIP) Award in 2010, and a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program Award from the NSF in 2010.