Rate My Professor Erik Blair

Enrique "Erik" Blair, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the School of Engineering and Computer Science at Baylor University. He joined the faculty in fall 2015 following the completion of his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame. Prior to his academic career, Blair served as a submarine officer in the U.S. Navy and as military faculty at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. His professional trajectory includes recognition as a Baylor University Rising Stars Fellow for 2017-2018 and honors as an Outstanding Faculty member for Teaching Excellence in 2018-2019. Blair has been awarded a research leave for Spring 2027 and serves as a sponsor for the Baylor chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers.

Blair's research centers on quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA), low-power molecular computing, and open quantum systems. His investigations explore power dissipation and quantum decoherence in clocked molecular QCA devices, molecule-environment interactions modeled via Schrödinger’s equation or Lindblad equations, field-driven electron transfer, and the stabilizing effects of environmental decoherence on QCA bits. He is part of a team advancing mixed-valence molecules for faster, room-temperature QCA operation. Key publications include "Power Dissipation in Clocking Wires for Clocked Molecular Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata" (Journal of Computational Electronics, 2010), "Electric-Field-Driven Electron-Transfer in Mixed-Valence Molecules" (The Journal of Chemical Physics, 2016), "Clock Topologies for Molecular Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata" (Journal of Low Power Electronics and Applications, 2018), "Electric-Field Inputs for Molecular Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata Circuits" (IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, 2019), and "Environmental Decoherence Stabilizes Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata" (Journal of Applied Physics, 2013). Blair teaches ELC 4366/5396 Quantum Mechanics for Engineers, ELC 4396/5396 Introduction to Quantum Computing, electrical circuits, and electronic communication systems. His contributions extend to multidisciplinary modeling of nanometer-scale molecular computing dynamics and quantum models for olfaction involving inelastic electron transfer spectroscopy.