
Academic Leadership

Chris Xu
Director of Applied and Engineering Physics
276 Clark Hall
607-255-1460
cx10@cornell.edu
Chris Xu is IBM Professor of Engineering, Cornell University School of Applied and Engineering Physics Professor, the Mong Family Foundation Director of Cornell Neurotech – Engineering, the director of Cornell NeuroNex Hub, an NSF funded center for developing neurotechnology, and Director of the School of Applied and Engineering Physics. Visit his page to learn more.

Lena F. Kourkoutis
Director of Undergraduate Studies
235 Clark Hall
607-255-9121
lena.f.kourkoutis@cornell.edu
Kourkoutis received a Diploma in Physics from the University of Rostock, Germany in 2003, and then moved to Ithaca where she was awarded a PhD in 2009. As a Humboldt Research Fellow Kourkoutis spent 2011-2012 exploring cryo-electron microscopy in the Molecular Structural Biology Group at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany. She returned to Cornell as a Postdoctoral Associate in 2012 and joined the Applied and Engineering Faculty in 2013. She has been selected by Microscopy Society of America as the recipient of the prestigious 2013 Albert Crewe Award. The Kourkoutis Electron Microscopy Group focuses on understanding and controlling nanostructured materials, from complex oxide heterostructures to materials for battery and photovoltaic applications to biomaterials.

Joel Brock
Director of Master of Engineering Program
201 Clark Hall
607-255-9006
jdb20@cornell.edu
After receiving his doctoral degree, Brock spent two years as a postdoctoral research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and then joined the Cornell faculty in 1989. He served as Director of the School of Applied & Engineering Physics from 2000-2007. At Cornell, he is affiliated with the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR), the Energy Materials Center at Cornell, and is Director of the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS). He is a member of the American Crystallography Association, the Materials Research Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society of Engineering Education, Sigma Xi, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and The Materials Society. Brock is a fellow of the American Physical Society.

Jie Shan
Director of Graduate Studies
274 Clark Hall
Jie Shan received her diploma in Mathematics and Physics from Moscow State University, Russia in 1996 and Ph.D. in Physics from Columbia University in 2001. From 2002 - 2014, she was an assistant and associate professor in Physics at Case Western Reserve University; and from 2014 - 2017, an associate and full professor at the Pennsylvania State University. She joined the Cornell University School of Applied and Engineering Physics as a full professor in 2018. Learn more on her page.