Ghodssi, Reza

Herbert Rabin Distinguished Chair in Engineering
Director of the MEMS Sensors and Actuators Lab (MSAL)
2232 Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building
Phone: 
301-405-8158
PI/Lab Director

Reza Ghodssi is a Distinguished University Professor, the Herbert Rabin Distinguished Chair in Engineering, and a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher at the University of Maryland (UMD). Dr. Ghodssi is the Director of the MEMS Sensors and Actuators Lab (MSAL) in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and the Institute for Systems Research (ISR) at the UMD. He is the Inaugural Executive Director of Research and Innovation for the Clark School of Engineering at the University System of Maryland at Southern Maryland (USMSM), MATRIX Lab (MATRIX). He is also affiliated with the Fischell Department of Bioengineering (BIOE), the Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices (Fischell Institute), the Maryland NanoCenter, the Maryland Energy Innovation Institute (MEII), and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) at UMD. Dr. Ghodssi's research interests are in the design and development of micro/nano/bio devices and systems for chemical and biological sensing, small-scale energy conversion, and harvesting for healthcare applications. Dr. Ghodssi also served as the director of the Institute for Systems Research (ISR) for eight years (2009-2017). During this time, he launched several interdisciplinary initiatives such as the Maryland Robotics Center (MRC) and the Brain and Behavior Initiative (BBI) -- now an institute at UMD -- aimed at enhancing the impact of ISR research efforts on society while building a more interactive faculty, staff, and student community across different disciplines in the institute. Dr. Ghodssi served as the founding co-director of BBI for six years (2015-2021). Dr, Ghodssi is a Fellow of IEEE, AVS, and ASME, has 175 journal publications and 372 refereed conference papers/abstracts, and is the co-editor of the MEMS Materials and Processes Handbook published in 2011. He served as an associate editor for the Biomedical Microdevices (BMMD) for 13 years (2008-2021) and served as an associate editor for the Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems (JMEMS) for twelve years (2008-2020). Dr. Ghodssi is  President of the Transducer Research Foundation (TRF). TRF is an international nonprofit organization whose mission is to stimulate research in science and engineering, with emphasis on technologies related to transducers, microsystems, and nanosystems, and to foster the exchange of ideas and information between academic, industrial, and government researchers. Dr. Ghodssi served as chair and technical program chair of several national and international MEMS conferences, including the 2022 and 2020 Hilton Head Workshops. Dr. Ghodssi was the lead organizer and chair of the inaugural Denice Denton Emerging Leaders Workshop 2016 held in Madison, Wisconsin, which focused on helping mid-career faculty (women and men) develop knowledge, skills, strategies, and critical networks. He has nine U.S. patents issued, eleven U.S. patents published, with another seven pending.