Liesl Folks

Liesl Folks' research interests include national and global policy for the semiconductor manufacturing and supply chain, nanoscale spin-electronic devices and materials for data storage, magnetic field sensing and logic, nanoscale magnetic metrology, microwave-assisted magnetic recording, spin-transfer-torque sensors, and Hall cross field sensors. She holds a PhD in physics from the University of Western Australia and an MBA from Cornell University.

For the period 2019-2023, she served UA as Provost, following which she launched the Center for Semiconductor Manufacturing. Before joining UA in July 2019, she was dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University at Buffalo. Prior to her roles in higher education, she spent 16 years in research and development at IBM Almaden Research Center, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and Western Digital. She is a champion for broadening participation in engineering and science.

Folks holds 12 U.S. patents and has authored more than 60 peer-reviewed papers that have attracted more than 13,300 citations. In 2024, she served as the panel chair for the National Academies' consensus report "Strategies to Enable Assured Access to Semiconductors for the Department of Defense." Dr. Folks is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

ORCID: 0000-0003-0161-957X  |  Google Scholar: https://bit.ly/3sR0Qm6  |  Scopus ID: 6701328026

Degrees

Research Interests