Engineering professor receives faculty career award

Marc Cahay, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Cincinnati, was honored on April 17 with the 2018 Faculty Career Award from the Provost. Faculty nominated for the award must exemplify excellence in teaching, research and service.

As an educator, Cahay has supported countless students, including the 32 master’s and doctoral students he mentored who have now graduated. His motivating influence is reflected in his relationships with students like Ph.D. candidate Jonathan Ludwick, who said, “His personability, knowledge, connections, and overall willingness to help has drastically enhanced both my ambition and ability to be in the field of research. Dr. Cahay has been an excellent research adviser as well as an inspiration to my work.” He has received multiple teaching awards at UC, including the 2012 Distinguished Teaching Professor Award.

Throughout his 28 years of service at UC, Cahay has earned an international reputation for his pioneering contributions research in nanoscale device modeling, vacuum nanoelectronics, and more recently, theoretical and experimental discoveries in spintronics. He has accumulated a staggering record of seminal research publications, lectures, fellowships, grants, awards, and professional activities.

His work has opened countless opportunities for collaboration and offered tremendous exposure for the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, the College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS), and UC.

Over the years, he has been on the organizing committees of over 30 international conferences in his field, including three major ones in Cincinnati. In 2019, he will host the International Vacuum Nanoelectronics and International Vacuum Electron Sources Conferences, which will be run jointly for the first time at UC West Campus.

He has served as Department Head for Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) since February 2017. As a leader, Cahay cultivates an environment of scholarship, collaboration, and mutual advancement that encourages his students and colleagues to learn, share, and innovate. Professor Punit Boolchand from EECS commended Cahay as a unifying force and a catalyst for transformation within the department: “Professor Cahay is the facilitator - his most important leadership quality is selflessness.”

Cahay joined UC in 1989 and was promoted to Professor in 2000. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Electrochemical Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Please join CEAS in congratulating Marc Cahay!