APL Rising Stars Collection and APL Rising Star Award
Applied Physics Letters is committed to recognizing the next generation of global scientists who will shape the future of applied physics. To this end, we have established the first annual APL Rising Stars Collection and APL Rising Star Award to bring visibility to the impressive work of early career principal investigators. Inclusion in the collection will be more selective than the journal as a whole so as to showcase notable contributions. The award winner and collection will be highly visible through promotion by APL.
Eligibility: The primary principal investigator (PI) must be within 10 years of their PhD defense date (not including career breaks such as family or medical leave) upon manuscript submission. The PI is primarily responsible for the origination of the project, for its overall direction, and for leading the interpretation of the results. The scope of the collection encompasses the entire scope of the journal.
How to submit: Submit for consideration as normal through the online submission system. During submission, answer “Yes” to the question of eligibility of the primary PI and provide the date of their PhD defense.
Selection process: The selection process starts in July of each calendar year. To be considered for the collection and award, papers must have been accepted between July 1 of the prior year and June 30 of the current year. Only papers rated highly by the Reviewers and/or Editors will be considered. A Selection Committee formed of APL Editorial Advisory Board members will choose the papers to be included in the collection and will identify the winner of the APL Rising Star award. The collection and award winner will be announced in the Fall.
APL Rising Star Award: The award winner will be announced in a press release, invited to write an APL Perspective on their field of expertise, and receive an honorarium of 1500 USD.
More info: Papers will be published as normal when they are ready in a regular issue of the journal. If selected for inclusion in the collection, papers will also populate a virtual collection page.
We look forward to your submissions to the APL Rising Stars Collection! If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected].
Published and Publishing Collections:
APL Rising Star Award Winners
2024
Lili Ding
Assistant Professor
Sun Yat-sen University
Lili Ding received her PhD in condensed matter physics from Sun Yat-sen University (China). She focused on the regulation of polar microstructure and electrical transport properties in ferroelectric material. After that, she did as a postdoctoral researcher at Dresden University of Technology (Germany), where she first added light that contains non-invasive and ultra-fast features into the control of domain structure and conductance in ferroelectric materials. Meanwhile, she built an innovative experimental platform for the co-interaction of optical loading and scanning probe technology, aiming to characterize the differences in the electrical conduction behavior of domain walls under different illumination conditions. It brings new possibilities to realize the application and development of the optomanipulation-related electronic devices in ferroelectric material.
Zhou Liu
Assistant Professor
College of Chemistry and Environmental Engineering
Shenzhen University
Zhou Liu is an Associate Professor in the College of Chemistry and Environmental Engineering at Shenzhen University. His research spans interdisciplinary areas including microfluidic technology, fluid physics, and biomedical applications. He has published over 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals. His innovations have yielded technologies for drug delivery, cosmetics, and industrial fluid processing—several of which have grown into startup ventures. These advances have led to multiple Chinese, U.S., and European patents, with two earning silver medals at the Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions (2018, 2019).
Dr. Liu earned his bachelor's degree in Thermal and Power Engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (2011) and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Hong Kong (2015), followed by postdoctoral research (2015 2016). Since joining Shenzhen University in 2016, he has led three projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and several initiatives supported by Guangdong Province and Shenzhen Municipality. His honors include the Second Prize in Basic Research from the Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China (CIESC) (2022), Guangdong Province Youth Top Talent (2024), the Shenzhen Excellent Young Scientist Award (2023), Shenzhen High-Level Overseas Talent (Category B, 2021), and the Shenzhen University Outstanding Young Faculty Award (2020), the CHEMINAS Poster Award (2015). Dr. Liu serves as a Committee Member of the Microchemical Engineering Division at CIESC.
2023
Jean Anne Incorvia
Assistant Professor
Chandra Family Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Microelectronics Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin
Stochastic Domain Wall-Magnetic Tunnel Junction Artificial Neurons for Noise-Resilient Spiking Neural Networks
Thomas Leonard, Samuel Liu, Harrison Jin, Jean Anne C. Incorvia, Appl. Phys. Lett. 122, 262406 (2023)
Jean Anne C. Incorvia is an Associate Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, where she directs the Integrated Nano Computing (INC) Lab. Dr. Incorvia develops nanodevices for the future using emerging physics and materials, with an emphasis on applications in computing. This includes research in spintronics, nanomagnetism, neuromorphic brain-inspired computing, in-memory computing, 2D materials-based computing, computing in extreme environments, and application of new materials to energy and health.
Dr. Incorvia received her bachelor’s in physics from UC Berkeley in 2008 and her Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University in 2015, cross-registered at MIT. From 2015-2017, she completed a postdoc at Stanford University. She has over 70 articles published in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings and has given over 70 invited talks. Her research has been supported by the US National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy, US Department of Defense, Sandia National Laboratories, The Southwest Research Institute, Samsung Electronics, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd., Lockheed Martin, and Applied Research Laboratories. She received a 2020 US National Science Foundation CAREER award, the 2020 IEEE Magnetics Society Early Career Award, and a 2021 Intel Rising Stars award. She was an invited contributor to the 2020 and 2022 IEEE International Roadmap for Devices and Systems (IRDS) on magnetic-based computing. Dr. Incorvia has served on and taken leadership roles in the International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), the Device Research Conference (DRC), the Magnetism and Magnetic Materials Conference (MMM), and Intermag.