Theda Daniels-Race facts for kids

Theda M. Daniels-Race is an American engineer and a special professor at Louisiana State University. She works in the field of nanoelectronics, which is about creating very tiny electronic devices. Her research focuses on growing and studying nanomaterials and special electronic devices made from semiconductors.

Early Life and Education

Theda Daniels-Race loved science from a very young age. When she was just five years old, she decided she wanted to get a Ph.D. and become a scientist. This was after she talked with her parents about how long people stay in school!

She earned a scholarship called the National Achievement Scholarship. In 1983, she got her first degree in electrical engineering from Rice University. She then went on to get her master's degree in the same field from Stanford University in 1985. She was able to do this thanks to the Graduate Engineering Minorities Fellowship.

Theda Daniels-Race was one of only ten students chosen for a special national program called the AT&T Cooperative Research Fellowship. This allowed her to get her Ph.D. in electrical engineering at Cornell University. Her main professor there was Lester F. Eastman. For her Ph.D., she studied how to observe very tiny particles called electrons. She was looking at how these electrons moved in special ways, like "hot electrons" and "ballistic transport." She used advanced methods to grow tiny electronic parts for her research. In 1990, she earned her Ph.D. She was the 19th African American woman to get a Ph.D. in physics or a related science field in the United States.

Research and Career

In 1989, Dr. Daniels-Race joined the faculty at Duke University. There, she set up the university's very first lab for growing special materials using a method called molecular beam epitaxy. She started a research program to study III-V semiconductors, which are important materials for electronics. She received funding from the National Science Foundation for her work.

Later, from 2001 to 2003, she received money from the US Department of Energy. This funding helped her study how different ways of growing materials affected their properties. At Duke, she also studied how tiny particles interact with each other and developed microelectronic devices.

In 2003, Dr. Daniels-Race moved to Louisiana State University. She is now a distinguished professor there. At LSU, she started new research on growing hybrid electronic materials. Her team received funding to work on microelectronics with the University of Texas at Austin. Her research also looks at other tiny structures, like carbon nanotubes and transition metal dichalcogenides. These are super small materials with unique properties.

Throughout her career, Dr. Daniels-Race has worked with big companies like Union Carbide, Exxon, General Electric, and AT&T Bell Laboratories. She also helps guide the Department of Physics and Engineering at Tulane University. She is a strong supporter of women and minorities in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). She is also an active member of several important science groups, including the American Physical Society.

Dr. Daniels-Race has also written a chapter in a book about how to design and make very small electronic devices.

Personal Life

Theda Daniels-Race is married to Paul Race.