Jacklyn Zhu, a first-year Ph.D. student in Columbia Electrical Engineering’s Eisner Transformative Harsh-Environment Electronics Research Lab (led by Professor Savannah Eisner), has been awarded the highly competitive 2025 Department of Defense National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship. The honor recognizes Zhu’s promise as a future leader in fields critical to national defense and advances her groundbreaking research in electronics designed for extreme environments.
Advised by Professor Savannah Eisner, Zhu works on wide-bandgap semiconductor devices—a class of materials that are particularly suited for high-power, high-frequency, and high-temperature applications. Her work is integral to the ETHER Lab’s mission: developing resilient electronics capable of operating in harsh conditions such as outer space, deep-sea, and arctic terrains.
Zhu completed her B.S. in Materials Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), specializing in electronic materials. Prior to Columbia, her research focused on the electrical characterization of analog memory devices. Her current focus on wide-bandgap technologies represents a leap into designing the next generation of durable and efficient electronics for critical infrastructure and defense systems.
In addition to the NDSEG Fellowship, Zhu was selected as a Presidential Fellow at Columbia Engineering—one of the School’s highest distinctions awarded to incoming Ph.D. students. The fellowship reflects both her academic excellence and potential to lead pioneering research efforts.
As Zhu continues to explore the intersection of materials science and electronic design under extreme stressors, her work holds promise for applications ranging from space exploration to defense infrastructure—helping pave the way for technology that endures.
