2018 Conference Acknowledgements

Dr. Liesl Folks
Dean, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
University at Buffalo

Liesl Folks serves as dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and professor of Electrical Engineering at the University at Buffalo, NY.  She holds a BSc (Hons) and a PhD, both in Physics, from The University of Western Australia, as well as an MBA from Cornell.  Prior to joining UB in 2012, she spent 16 years in research & development in support of the magnetic data storage industry in Silicon Valley.  There she worked at IBM Almaden Research Center, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, and Western Digital.  An internationally recognized expert in the fields of magnetic materials and devices, nanoscale metrology, and spin-electronic devices, Dr Folks holds 14 U.S. patents and is author of more than 50 peer-reviewed papers that have attracted more than 10,000 citations.  Dr. Folks has long been a mentor to women and under-represented minorities in STEM, and was a co-author of the ASEE's Deans Diversity Statement that was announced by President Obama in 2015, and now has more than 140 engineering deans as signatories.  She was the President of the IEEE Magnetics Society for 2013/2014, and currently serves on the Strategic Planning Committee for the IEEE Technical Activities Board.  In her role at UB, she has been a leader in expanding interdisciplinary research aimed at addressing major social and global challenges, in growing experiential learning opportunities for students, and in expanding the scale of UB’s engineering and computer science programs to meet the growing workforce needs in NY and in the USA.