Mechanical Engineering

Dereje Agonafer

MLK Visiting Professor 2007-2008 Jenkins Garrett Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Texas at Arlington

MIT Sponsors:
- Department of Mechanical Engineering
Scholar Link:Visit Dereje Agonafer's faculty page
Scholar Link:View Dereje Agonafer's publications

The MIT MLK Visiting Professor and Scholars Program was indeed a superb experience and was an excellent springboard to my professional career. Since then, many good things have happened, and, yes, your program deserves great credit! Since I left IBM and joined academia, I have graduated 215 graduate students including 21 PhDs and I am currently advising 12 PhDs and several MS students. Recently [February 2019], I was elected to the National Academy of Engineering…Obviously, a special thanks to Mechanical Engineering Department–including Professors Rohan Abeyaratne (Chair at the time), Gang Chen, Wesley L. Harris, Borivoje Mikic, and Evelyn Wong–for supporting my acceptance to the MLK Visiting Professor and Scholars Program…please keep up the excellent program and let me know if I can be of help in the future.

— Dereje Agonafer

Background

Dereje Agonafer is a professor and Director of Electronics, MEMS, and Nanoelectronics Systems Packaging Center at The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). Dr. Agonafer holds a PhD from Howard University and spent 15 years working at IBM before joining the faculty at UTA.

Interests

Agonafer has a multidisciplinary focus on thermo/mechanical issues in microelectronics, MEMS and nanoelectronics with broad applications including computers, telecommunications and bio-fluidics. In addition to a PhD program focusing in packaging, Agonafer established a certificate program in packaging in 2001. The Certificate in Electronic Packaging program provides graduate-level knowledge in the field of electronic packaging, with a concentration on numerical and experimental characterization of thermo/mechanical issues.