Li and Franklin Named Fellows of the National Academy of Inventors

The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) announced its newest class of fellows, and it includes two faculty members of Duke University’s Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE): Hai “Helen” Li and Aaron Franklin.

Li was inducted in recognition of her work in neuromorphic circuits and systems for brain-inspired computing, machine learning acceleration and conventional and emerging memory design. Franklin’s work is focused on improving the performance and functionality of nanomaterial-enabled electronic devices.

Li, Franklin and the rest of the 2024 class of fellows will be formally inducted during the NAI national conference, set for June in Atlanta. 

The 2024 fellows hail from 135 research universities, governmental and non-profit research institutions worldwide and their work spans across various disciplines. They collectively hold more than 5,000 issued U.S. patents, and their innovations are making significant tangible societal and economic impacts today and will well into the future.

National Academy of Inventors fellows are known for their contributions to major advancements in science and technology.

The 2024 class of fellows will be honored and presented medals by an official of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office during the NAI’s 14^thannual conference to be held June 23-26 in Atlanta. 

“This year’s Class of NAI Fellows represents a truly impressive caliber of inventors,” said Paul Sanberg, president of the NAI. “Each of these individuals are tackling real-world issues and creating solutions that propel us into the future. Through their work, they are making significant contributions to science, creating lasting societal impact, and growing the economy. NAI Fellows as a whole are a driving force of innovation, generating crucial advancements across scientific disciplines and creating tangible impacts as they move their technologies from lab to marketplace.”

Hai “Helen” Li

Li, chair of Duke ECE and the Marie Foote Reel E’46 Distinguished Professor of ECE, has made important contributions to spin-transfer torque random access memory (STT-RAM) and has been instrumental in the realization and commercialization of this technology.

Her innovations have enabled reliable operation of STT-RAM at nanometer technology nodes, significantly reducing manufacturing costs. Her work led to the successful prototyping of the first-ever STT-RAM chip fabricated in the United States and demonstrated the feasibility of STT-RAM using commercial semiconductor foundries worldwide. Since its commercialization in 2019, STT-RAM has rapidly gained popularity as an embedded on-chip memory solution in wearable electronics, offering low energy consumption and high performance. 

Li was also among the first to integrate hardware considerations into machine-learning acceleration. She pioneered the mapping of matrix-vector multiplications onto a crossbar array of nonvolatile memories, accelerating neural network computations. Her work forms the theoretical foundation of modern AI chips using nonvolatile memories.

As a prolific researcher, inventor and technology advocate, Li has authored more than 400 technical publications and holds 79 US patents, eight of which have been licensed to Everspin Technologies Inc., a NASDAQ-listed magnetic memory company. She is the founding director of the Duke Center for Computational Evolutionary Intelligence and co-founder of the first NSF IUCRC center dedicated to AI computing hardware. She serves as the co-PI and AI Foundations Thrust Lead for Athena, the NSF AI Institute for Edge Computing.

Aaron Franklin

Franklin, the Addy Professor of ECE, focuses his research on improving the performance and functionality of nanomaterial-enabled electronic devices. This includes the exploration of more environmentally sustainable electronics, such as recyclable printed transistors, as well as high-performance nanoscale devices.

About seven years ago, his lab developed a sensor technology to monitor car tire tread wear. After generating initial data and publishing a paper on the results, Franklin patented the technology and spun out a company called Tyrata. The venture was funded by a $4.5 million A-round in 2018, a $2.9 million A1-round in 2020 and additional investments from Bridgestone Americas in 2022. Tyrata diversified its technology and product offerings, with its primary focus evolving into a drive-over system for monitoring tire tread depth for large fleets of vehicles. Franklin served as chief technology officer for six years until Tyrata’s acquisition in late 2023 by Bridgestone.

A second startup, Versametrics, is a measurement systems company seeking to accelerate electronic device and sensor development. The idea for the company began as custom electronics to enable specific research projects in the Franklin lab, but he quickly realized there was a need from other researchers for this technology as well.

The Versametrics Dart is a small, affordable device that includes versatile electronic characterization tools. Versametrics later received a grant from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, also called “America’s Seed Fund.”

Prior to joining the Duke Engineering faculty in 2014, Franklin was on the research staff at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. His work at IBM focused on low-dimensional nanoelectronics with specific emphasis on carbon nanotube (CNT) transistors, including device scaling, transport studies and diverse integration approaches. While at IBM, Franklin was awarded an Outstanding Technical Achievement recognition for his work on nanoscale CNT transistors. He was also involved in many other projects with applications including photovoltaics, thin-film transistors and supercapacitors.