UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Two Penn State professors were named to the 2025 class of fellows by the National Academy of Inventors (NAI): Swaroop Ghosh, professor of electrical engineering and computer science (EECS), and Dipanjan Pan, the Dorothy Foehr Huck & J. Lloyd Chair Professor in Nanomedicine. Only a relatively small group of academic inventors receive this honor, which is considered the highest professional distinction, each year. They will be officially inducted at the 15th Annual NAI Conference on June 4 in Los Angeles.
"Being selected as a National Academy of Inventors Fellow is one of the highest honors in innovation and reflects the extraordinary caliber and global impact of a researcher’s work,” said Andrew Read, senior vice president for research at Penn State. “We are immensely proud of Dr. Pan and Dr. Ghosh for earning this distinction. Their research is transforming ideas into solutions that make life safer and healthier.”
In addition to Ghosh and Pan, who is also a professor of materials science and engineering and of nuclear engineering, Penn State is home to 13 NAI fellows.
Pan was nominated for his demonstrated track record in translational innovation at the interface of materials science, biology and engineering to address unmet challenges in human diseases, such as developing synthetic blood for transfusion medicine, as well as inventing next-generation diagnostic tools for infectious disease and women’s health. Read more about Pan’s achievements.
Ghosh was nominated for his work in the field of memory design and security, with his patented innovations for hardware design and security heavily influencing the technological development of over 25 major semiconductor manufacturers and incorporated into common laptops and other computing systems. Read more about Ghosh’s achievements.
The NAI consists of more than 4,600 individual members from over 260 institutions worldwide, with the NAI Fellows Program highlighting members whose patents and licensed technologies have helped create an estimated $3.8 trillion dollars in revenue across various commercial and research industries. The program was established in 2012 and now includes 2,253 fellows globally. Fellows are selected from a pool in which nominees should be “recognized as a pioneer in their field” and “have made outstanding contributions to innovation in areas of such as patents and licensing, innovative discovery and technology, significant impact on society, and support and enhancement of innovation,” according to the NAI.
“NAI Fellows are a driving force within the innovation ecosystem, and their contributions across scientific disciplines are shaping the future of our world,” said Paul R. Sanberg, president of the NAI, said in the academy’s press release. “We are thrilled to welcome this year’s class of fellows to the academy. They are truly an impressive cohort, and we look forward to honoring them at our 15th Annual Conference in Los Angeles next year.”