Ke Du, an assistant professor in UCR’s Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, received an Early Career Award at the Electron, Ion and Photon Beam Technology and Nanofabrication, or EIPBN, conference in May.

The award recognizes “outstanding researchers who are in the early stages of their career for technical contributions to nanofabrication technology and service to the EIPBN community,” according to the EIBPN website. Recipients are also invited to give an EIPBN Early Career Award Lecture. Du received a plaque commemorating his accomplishments and a check for $1,000 sponsored by KLA, a semiconductor manufacturing company. 

After obtaining a doctorate from Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey in 2015, Du joined the Mathies Lab at UC Berkeley as a postdoctoral researcher. At Berkeley, he developed an automated microfluidic system for the amplification-free detection of the Ebola virus at a single molecule level. In 2018, Du accepted his first full-time faculty job at the Rochester Institute of Technology. In fall 2022, Du and his Nanobiosensing, Nanomanufacturing, and Nanomaterials (3N) Lab  joined the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at UCR. 

Du’s research interests include molecular diagnostics, bioimaging, mechanobiology, and nanomanufacturing. He has received numerous awards and honors, such as the National Institutes of Health Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award in 2021, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Collaborative Travel Grant in 2019, the James H. Potter Award for outstanding Ph.D. students in 2014, and the National Science Foundation Graduate Student Fellowship in 2012. He has been recognized as a global rising star in sensing by ACS Sensors and a finalist for the MINE2020 Young Scientist Award.