Principal Advisor

John Popovics

johnpop@illinois.edu

John S. Popovics holds B.S. and M.S. degrees (Drexel University 1988 and 1990, respectively) in civil engineering, and a Ph.D. (The Pennsylvania State University 1994) in engineering science and mechanics. He has been on the faculty of the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois since January 2002. He has also held the positions of Research Assistant Professor at Northwestern University, Assistant Professor at Drexel University, Guest Scientist at the German Federal Materials Research Institute (BAM-Berlin), Visiting Professor at the Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain and Visiting Researcher, Laboratoire Centrale des Pont et Chaussées (LCPC) in France.

Advisor

Matthew Clarke

maclarke@illinois.edu

Professor Clarke got his BS in Mechanical Engineering 2016 from Howard University, his MS Aeronautics and Astronautics 2018 from Stanford University, and his Ph.D. Aeronautics and Astronautics 2022 from Stanford University. He also was a postdoctoral fellow at MIT. He began teaching Aerospace Engineering classes at the University of Illinois in May 2023.

Professor Clarke’s research interests are Applied Aerodynamics, Sustainable Aviation, Electric Aircraft Propulsion, Aeroacoustics, and Aircraft Noise. In parallel, he runs the Laboratory for Electric Aircraft Design and Sustainability, which uses experimental and computational modeling of complex systems to understand the relationships between novel aerospace systems and the environment, particularly concerning energy and noise emissions.

Professionally, he is involved in the Vertical Flight Society (VFS), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). He was also in Forbes 30 under 30 Science for Fall 2023.

Advisor

Minjoo Lawrence Lee

mllee@illinois.edu

Minjoo Larry Lee received the Sc.B. with honors from Brown University, Providence, RI in 1998 and the Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA in 2003. From 2003 to 2006, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Microsystems Technology Laboratory at MIT, and from 2006-2007, he was with the Center for Thermoelectrics Research at RTI International in Durham, NC.

In 2008 he joined Yale University in New Haven, CT as an assistant professor of electrical engineering, and in 2016 he joined UIUC as an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. His research focuses on epitaxial crystal growth of optoelectronic materials and devices, with a particular emphasis on strain engineering, nanostructures, and control of material defects.

He is the author or coauthor of over 160 technical papers and conference proceedings and holds nine patents. He has received numerous recognitions including: IBM faculty award; North American conference on MBE (NAMBE) Young Investigator Award; DARPA Young Faculty Award; NSF CAREER award; and the IEEE Electron Device Society George E. Smith award.

His advisees have won 8 best presentation prizes at the IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, MRS fall meeting, Electronic Materials Conference, and NAMBE. He has also been honored for his teaching in areas including circuits and electromagnetics.

Advisor

Steven C. Michael

smichael@illinois.edu

Dr. Michael is currently Professor in the College of Business at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He received the Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University in 1993, through a joint program of the Department of Economics and the Harvard Business School. Prior to entering Harvard, Dr. Michael took a Master of Management with distinction in 1987 from the Kellogg School, Northwestern University, where he studied management and marketing. Before Kellogg, he worked as a development engineer with Bell Laboratories. He holds one United States patent. His bachelor’s degree was earned in Mathematical Sciences at Rice University, and he also received the Master of Engineering in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia.

Dr. Michael’s research focuses on how opportunities are identified and exploited to create new businesses, markets, and organizations. He is the author of over two dozen published research studies, and his work has appeared in the Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Management, Information Systems Research, and Management International Review, among other journals. He has published extensively on entrepreneurial management, inter-organizational relationships, and information systems strategy. In the classroom, Dr. Michael teaches courses in Entrepreneurship, Technology Management, and Business Strategy to undergraduates, graduates, and executives. He has won several teaching awards, including the Campus Award for Teaching Excellence, Illinois’s highest honor for teaching.

He is an active member of the Academy of Management, the Strategic Management Society, the the American Economic Association, and INFORMS. He is a past editor of the Journal of Management and currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Business Venturing, the Strategic Management Journal, the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, and the Journal of Small Business Management.