Jon Ihlefeld

His research is on the development and fundamental understanding of the behavior of functional materials, mostly in thin film forms (i.e. materials that are 50 to 3000 atoms in thickness). These include developing materials for solid-state lithium-ion batteries, materials for electronics that control power in electrical systems, and materials for computer memory. Most recently, efforts have focused on materials that are targeted to reduce energy consumption in computing by improving their memory retention and reliability, which is necessary to meet the significantly increasing energy demands from information technologies. He obtained a B.S. degree with distinction in Materials Engineering from Iowa State University and Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from North Carolina State University. He completed his education as a Postdoctoral Scholar at The Pennsylvania State University. Prior to joining UVA, he was a Senior, Principal, and Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff in the Materials Science and Engineering Center at Sandia National Laboratories, a U.S. Department of Energy research and development facility.

He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of The American Ceramic Society, a past Principal Editor of the Journal of Materials Research, and sits on the Editorial Advisory Board for Applied Physics Letters. He is a Fellow of The American Ceramic Society and a past Chair of its Electronics Division, is a Senior Member of the IEEE, and is the Vice-President for Ferroelectrics for the IEEE. He has received numerous awards, including a DARPA Young Faculty Award, the IEEE’s Ferroelectrics Young Investigator Award, the Richard M. Fulrath Award from The American Ceramic Society, and Up & Coming Innovator, Mission Innovator, and Distinguished Mentor Awards from Sandia National Laboratories.