Alumnus Mark Hersam (BSEE '96, PhD '00) has been named a fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation: an honor sometimes referred to as the "genius grant." Hersam, a professor and materials scientist at Northwestern University, leads a research group looking into nanomaterials and ways to make them more efficient, inexpensive, and reproducible with the end goal of accelerating the development of nanotechnology applications in our daily lives.