T.C. Shen
College of Science
Physics Department

Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentor of the Year

T.-C. Shen got his PhD at the University of Maryland in 1986. After 2 years’ cosmology research in Trieste, Italy, he joined the University of Illinois working on silicon surface science and nanoscale patterning. In 1999 he joined the faculty of Utah State University and worked on epitaxial phosphorous δ doping and patterning for Si-based dopant qubits. Beginning 2009 he turned his attention to carbon nanotubes while establishing two shared facilities at USU: Nanoscale Device Laboratory for device fabrication in 2010 and Microscopic Core Facility for electron microscopy in 2014. In 2012 he created the first lab-based microfabrication course at USU. Ten years later, 151 students from 6 disciplines across science and engineering have taken this course and many considered this class the best one in their entire USU experience. T.C. Shen has been a research mentor of more than 45 undergraduate students who have collected 2 Goldwater Scholarships, 2 SURFs at NIST, one SULI at Sandia, 3 Peaks fellowships, 4 College of Science mini-grants, and 11 URCO grants. Recognizing the importance of photonics in quantum technology, he is currently developing an integrated photonics research program including a photonics class and a teaching lab at USU.