Amanda Mott, Penn Today
Ritesh Agarwal (left), Srinivasa Ramanujan Distinguished Scholar in Materials Science and Engineering, and Douglas Jerolmack, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Endowed Term Professor of Earth and Environmental Science and professor of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics.
Two Penn faculty have been elected to the 2025 class of American Physical Society (APS) Fellows. Ritesh Agarwal of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and Douglas Jerolmack of the School of Arts & Sciences and Penn Engineering are recognized by their peers with the honor.
Each year, no more than one half of one percent of the Society’s membership, excluding student members, is elected to the status of APS Fellow, for outstanding advances in physics through original research and publication or significant innovative contributions in the application of physics to science and technology.
Ritesh Agarwal is the Srinivasa Ramanujan Distinguished Scholar in Materials Science and Engineering. His research focuses on developing and understanding new electronic and photonic materials, with applications in next-generation computing, sensing, and quantum technologies. He is being recognized by the APS “for pioneering contributions to materials science by engineering novel electronic and photonic materials by combining quantum geometry and topology of bandstructures with precisely defined local defects and elucidation of their properties by developing new nonlinear photogalvanic spectroscopies.”
Agarwal has received numerous honors for his work, including recognition from the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research, and is widely regarded for his creative approach to bridging fundamental physics and practical materials design.