People
Ronald A. Coutu, Jr. is a Professor and the V. Clayton Lafferty Endowed Chair in Electrical Engineering at Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI. He received his B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1993, his M.S. in electrical engineering from the California Polytechnic State University (CalPoly) in San Luis Obispo in 1995, and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 2004. He is a California Professional Engineer and Senior Member of the IEEE and SPIE. His research interests include MEMS, advanced microsystems, biosensors, device fabrication, micro-electrical contacts, and phase-change materials.
Protap K. Mahanta was born in Dinajpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He received BS and MS degree in Applied Physics, Electronics and Communication Engineering (APECE) from University of Dhaka, Bangladesh and M.E. in Electrical Engineering from University of Idaho, Idaho, USA. As part of his master’s thesis, he conducted research on Carbon nanomaterial based VLSI interconnects at University of Dhaka. During the M.E program, he worked on signal and power integrity of high speed, ultra-low power, thin and dense microelectronic chip/package/system endowed by Micron Technology, Inc. He was also the recipient of the Sumitomo Scholarship, an outstanding academic excellence award from the Sumitomo Corporation, Japan, during his study at University of Dhaka. In Fall 2017, he has joined in Prof. Ronald Coutu’s MEMS and Advanced Microsystems research group in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Marquette University, Milwaukee, to pursue his Ph.D degree. His current research is focused on the physics, design, fabrication and testing of micro contact of RF MEMS switch.
Turja Nandy, who is from Bangladesh, has started his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Marquette University, WI, USA from Spring-2018. Previously, he has completed his B.Sc. in Applied Physics, Electronics and Communication Engineering and M.Sc. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from University of Dhaka. His bachelor and master researches were about graphene nanomaterials, nanostructured thin films and their applications. For his academic excellence, Turja has achieved National Science and Technology Fellowship 2015-16 from Government of Bangladesh and Erasmus Mundus Scholarship 2017-18 from European Union. Currently, he is working as a Graduate Research Assistant in Prof. Dr. Coutu’s Advanced Microsystems Research Laboratory. His present research is focused on Design, Fabrication and Testing of Phase Change Materials based DC and RF Microswitches (along with MEMS microswitch performance comparison). He is also part of another project: MEMS membrane and cantilever-based gas sensor through miniaturized photoacoustic detection system. Besides, he is involved in installation, maintenance/troubleshooting and process development of different clean room fabrication tools such as UV and DUV photolithography, RIE and XeF2 dry etching, dual deposition (sputtering and evaporation) etc.
Farhana Anwar has started to pursue her M.S. degree from the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Marquette University, Milwaukee in Fall, 2017. She has also joined as a Research Assistant in Prof. Ronald Coutu’s MEMS and Advanced Microsystems research group, and her current research is focused on the design, fabrication and testing of pressure sensitivity of MEMS membrane. Farhana came to Marquette University as an international student from Bangladesh, where she received B.Sc. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE) from University of Dhaka. As part of her honors thesis, she conducted research on nanowire CdS/CdTe solar cell. During her B.Sc. program, she worked on design and simulation of Core Multishell Nanowire/Quantum Dot heterojunction structure, Core Multishell Metal Nanowire, Lead Free Perovskite Solar Cell, and CZTS Solar Cell.
Rafee Mahbub is a graduate student in Ph.D. program in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Marquette University. After successful completion of his MS degree at Marquette University, he has enrolled into the Ph.D. program in the same department. His master’s thesis was about water contaminant detection using RF microwave principles. He has received BS degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Currently, he is working as a Research Assistant (RA) in Prof. Dr. Coutu’s Advanced Microsystems Research Laboratory. His present research is focused on design and construct micro-structural features into a surrogate system in order to access the effect these features have on the resulting dynamic response of the bulk system.
Jefrey is a graduate student in the MS program in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering here at Marquette University. He started as a Research Assistant in the Advanced Microsystems Lab where his research included working with lithium-ion battery sensors, their safety systems, and testing state of charge. He has received his BS degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering also at Marquette. As of right now he is just starting out as a Research Assistant in Dr. Coutu’s Advanced Microsystems Lab. Currently he has been learning about MEMS devices in conjunction with working on a project that has to do with detecting/preventing water damage in residential buildings by using an ambient water vapor MEMS sensor inside the walls in hard to inspect areas.
