NC State Physicist Kumah Receives NSF CAREER Award

Divine Kumah, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics at NC State, has received a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The award, also known as the NSF CAREER award, is one of the highest awards the foundation bestows upon young faculty in the sciences.

The five-year award will support Kumah’s research project entitled, “Confining Magnetism to Two-Dimensions in Transition Metal Oxide Atomic Layers.” The project aims to use state-of-the-art synchrotron X-ray facilities at national laboratories to carry out three-dimensional non-destructive atomic-scale mapping of the atomic, electronic and magnetic structures of magnetic perovskite oxide surfaces and interfaces. The work has implications for the design of novel materials and devices for information processing, quantum computing and low-powered sensors.

The project will also develop low-cost augmented reality tools for visualizing complex atomic and electronic structures for classroom instruction and public outreach to K-12 schools.

Kumah received his Ph.D in applied physics from the University of Michigan in 2009 and did postdoctoral research at the Center for Research in Interface and Surface Phenomena at Yale University.