Rate My Professor Mahmoud Rasras

Mahmoud Rasras is a Professor of Electrical Engineering in the Engineering division at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) and serves as Global Network Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. He obtained his PhD in Physics from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, in 2000, where his research at the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) developed a spectroscopic photon-emission microscopy technique for studying CMOS device reliability, earning him the Roger A. Haken Best Student Paper Award at the 1999 International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM). Following his doctorate, Rasras spent over 11 years as a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent (now Nokia) in New Jersey, USA, pioneering photonic components for next-generation optical and microwave photonic networks. His innovations included ultra-narrow tunable optical filters on silicon photonics platforms, optical transceivers, all-optical logic technologies for high-speed data encryption, and a linearized optical FM discriminator for microwave photonics.

Prior to joining NYUAD, Rasras was an Associate Professor at Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi, directing the SRC/GlobalFoundries Center for Excellence on Integrated Photonics. There, he led developments in transceiver circuits for 400 Gb/s links, low-temperature germanium photodetectors on CMOS-compatible platforms, and multi-axis opto-MEMS accelerometers in collaboration with GlobalFoundries and A*STAR's Institute of Microelectronics in Singapore. At NYUAD, his research focuses on silicon photonics, integrated circuits for mode- and polarization-division multiplexing, hybrid integration of 2D materials on silicon photonics platforms for precise phase tuning, and applications in neuromorphic computing. Rasras has authored over 200 journal and conference papers, holds 34 US patents, and edited the book MEMS Accelerometers (MDPI, 2019). Notable publications include "CMOS compatible GaAs MSM photodetectors on Si using ultra-thin Ge buffer layer for visible photonic applications" (Journal of Applied Physics, 2019), "High-bandwidth and high-responsivity waveguide-integrated plasmonic germanium photodetector" (JOSA B, 2019), and "Non-reciprocal response in silicon photonic resonators integrated with 2D CuCrP2S6" (Light: Science & Applications, 2025). He has supervised numerous PhD and MSc students, secured over $3 million in funding, served on technical program committees for conferences such as Frontiers in Optics, and acted as Associate Editor for Optics Express. His honors include Senior Member of IEEE, membership in the Mohammed bin Rashid Academy of Scientists (MBRAS) and Sigma Xi, and Fellowship in the Industry Academy of the International Artificial Intelligence Industry Alliance (AIIA).