Dr. Cherie Kagan

Biography

Cherie Kagan earned her B.S.E. in Materials Science Engineering and B.A. in Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991, followed by a Ph.D. in Electronic Materials from MIT in 1996. Her thesis focused on the self-assembly of close-packed solids and semiconductor nanocrystals, highlighting the unique electronic and optical properties that arise from cooperative interactions among neighboring nanocrystals. After her doctoral studies, she worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Bell Laboratories, where she built a scanning confocal Raman microscope to investigate the mechanistic aspects of hologram formation in multicomponent photopolymers. In 1998, Kagan joined IBM's T. J. Watson Research Center, managing the Molecular Assemblies Devices Group. In January 2007, she became an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where she also directs the university's Nanofabrication facility. Kagan has been recognized by the American Chemical Society's Women Chemist Committee and has been featured in MIT Technology Review. She has received numerous accolades, including IBM's Outstanding Technical Achievement award in 2005, and currently serves on editorial boards and advisory boards in her field.

Research Interests