NSF Early Career Award Winner Caches In on More Memory

Professor Tosiron Adegbija had no desire to follow in his parents’ footsteps and become a professor. But during his doctoral studies, the native Nigerian realized teaching was nothing short of his dream job.

A five-year, $500,000 Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation will support the ECE assistant professor’s teaching and research. Adegibja’s research focuses on leveraging a material called spin-transfer torque random access memory, or STTRAM, to make computer caches more efficient.

A cache is a part of a device’s memory that stores frequently used items to speed up processing – Adegbija compares a computer’s main memory to a kitchen refrigerator and a cache to a bedside minifridge where a night owl might keep midnight snacks.

On the teaching side, Adegbija will work with the STEM Learning Center and the Office of Instruction and Assessment to develop curriculum, create activities for K-12 students and lead outreach efforts to recruit underrepresented minorities to STEMfields.

“I’m especially excited about this award because it focuses on both the research and the education,” Adegbija said. “I feel like education should be of paramount importance, and research should not be pursued at the expense of teaching.”