Dr. Ray Baughman
Two distinguished researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas were recently named Fellows of the National Academy of Inventors.
They are Dr. Ray Baughman, the Robert A. Welch Professor of Chemistry and director of the Alan G. MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute, and Dr. Kaushik Rajashekara, professor of electrical engineering and mechanical engineering and Distinguished Chair of Engineering.
The UT Dallas honorees join 168 leaders of invention and innovation who were named Fellows in December. The 2015 Fellows account for 5,368 issued U.S. patents, bringing the collective patents held by all of the academy's 582 Fellows to more than 20,000.
In the past five years, UT Dallas has had 71 patents issued, 63 U.S. patents and eight foreign patents.
Both Baughman and Rajashekara spent many years in industry before joining the UT Dallas faculty.
Dr. Kaushik Rajashekara
After earning his PhD in materials science from Harvard University, Baughman spent 31 years with Honeywell and came to UT Dallas in 2001. His inventions with various colleagues have provided vaccine potency indicators that have saved lives in the underdeveloped world, as well as artificial muscles and carbon nanotube sheets and yarns that are being commercially developed by licensees for diverse applications. He has 72 issued U.S. patents.
For one of his inventions — artificial muscles made from ordinary fishing line — Baughman and industry partner Lintec of America were recently gold winners of the Market Disruptor Product Special Recognition Award from R&D Magazine.
Baughman is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas; a foreign member of the European Academy of Sciences; a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the American Physical Society; an Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences; an honorary professor of six universities in China; and is on editorial or advisory boards of Science and other journals.
Rajashekara earned his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, and an MBA from Indiana Wesleyan University. He joined UT Dallas after several years with companies such as Asea Brown Boveri, General Motors Co. and Rolls-Royce Corp.
Working in the field of power electronics, he has created propulsion systems in automobiles, airplanes and industrial applications that run more efficiently, producing fewer emissions and using fewer natural resources. He was the lead engineer on power electronics for the propulsion system for GM EV1, the first electric vehicle that was commercially available in the United States.
Rajashekara is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the National Academy of Engineering. His contributions have earned numerous awards, including induction into the Delphi Innovation Hall of Fame, the 2006 Gerald Kliman Innovator Award, 2009 IEEE Industry Applications Society Outstanding Achievement Award and 2013 IEEE Richard Harold Kaufmann Award.