Rate My Professor Mark Hersam

Mark C. Hersam is the Chair of Materials Science and Engineering and the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering. He holds courtesy appointments as Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Professor of Chemistry, and serves as Director of the Materials Research Center. Hersam earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1996, an M.Phil. in Microelectronic Engineering and Semiconductor Physics from the University of Cambridge in 1997, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2000. He joined Northwestern in 2000 as an Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, advanced to Associate Professor in 2006 and Professor in the same year, held the Bette and Neison Harris Chair in Teaching Excellence from 2012 to 2015, was named Walter P. Murphy Professor in 2015, became Professor of Chemistry in 2007, Professor of Medicine in 2011, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 2015, and Department Chair in 2023.

The Hersam Research Group focuses on the synthesis, purification, functionalization, and application of low-dimensional nanoelectronic materials including monodisperse carbon nanotubes, graphene, plasmonic nanoparticles, transition metal dichalcogenides, hexagonal boron nitride, black phosphorus, and borophene. These materials enable mixed-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures for applications in thin-film transistors, memristors, transparent conductors, photovoltaics, batteries, biosensors, and quantum computing, with commercialization via scalable nanomanufacturing such as continuous flow solution processing and inkjet, aerosol jet, gravure, screen, and 3D printing. Hersam founded NanoIntegris, a supplier of nanoelectronic materials, and Volexion, a supplier of battery materials. His impact is evidenced by election to the National Academy of Engineering and American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2024, Materials Research Society Mid-Career Researcher Award in 2024, MacArthur Fellowship in 2014, and fellowships from AAAS, IEEE, APS, MRS, AVS, ACS, and SPIE. He has received multiple Departmental Teacher of the Year awards. Key publications include “Emerging device applications for semiconducting two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides” (ACS Nano, 2014), “Sorting carbon nanotubes by electronic structure using density differentiation” (Nature Nanotechnology, 2006), “Synthesis of borophenes: Anisotropic, two-dimensional boron polymorphs” (Science, 2015), “Mixed-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures” (Nature Materials, 2017), and “Effective passivation of exfoliated black phosphorus transistors against ambient degradation” (Nano Letters, 2014). As Executive Editor of ACS Nano since 2022, following service as Associate Editor from 2010 to 2021, he shapes the field.