Huili Grace Xing

Huili Grace Xing is an American electrical engineer and materials scientist. She is the William L. Quackenbush Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and of Materials Science and Engineering at the Cornell University College of Engineering, where she directs the Jena-Xing Laboratory and the SUPREME semiconductor research center. Her research focuses on wide-bandgap and polar semiconductor materials and devices, including gallium nitride, aluminum nitride, and two-dimensional layered crystals. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the American Physical Society (APS), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Early life and education Xing received a Bachelor's degree in physics from Peking University before moving to the United States for her Master's degree in materials science and engineering at Lehigh University. She then enrolled at the University of California, Santa Barbara for her Ph.D. in electrical engineering, completed in 2003.

Career

University of Notre Dame (2004-2015) Xing joined the University of Notre Dame (UND) in 2004 as an assistant professor of engineering. She was selected by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research as part of the 2008 Young Investigator Program as someone who "shows exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research." The following year, she was the recipient of a 2009 National Science Foundation (NSF) Early Career Development (CAREER) Award for her project "Graphene and Graphene Nanoribbon Optoelectronic Properties and Devices." In 2010, Debdeep Jena and Xing received separate Department of Defense funding through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for a project to create new gallium nitride (GaN) ultraviolet light sources that can be used by soldiers to purify water in the field. She received more funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy in 2013 for "projects aimed at developing next-generation power conversion devices that could dramatically transform how power is controlled and converted through the grid."

Cornell University (2015-present) Xing left UND in 2015 to join the Cornell University College of Engineering as the Richard E. Lunquist Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow with a joint appointment in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Material Science and Engineering. In this role, she worked Debdeep Jena to create GaN power diodes capable of serving as the building blocks for future GaN power switches. The group built a GaN power-switching device that could support 2,000 volts of electricity. As a result of her research, Xing was selected to join the national consortium to develop future cellular infrastructure. She was also elected the first William L. Quackenbush Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

In 2019, Xing was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) "for pioneering contributions in polar wide-bandgap semiconductors, 2D crystal semiconductors, and layered crystals."

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Xing served to a two-year term as Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies for the College of Engineering, from 2020 to 2022. Her co-authored paper "Molecular beam homoepitaxy on bulk AlN enabled by aluminum-assisted surface cleaning" was selected as an Editor’s Pick in the journal Applied Physics Letters. Xing also led a research team to investigate durable, energy-efficient, pausable processing in polymorphic memories (DEEP3M), where computational capabilities are pushed directly into the high-capacity memories.

In 2021, Xing was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

In 2022, Xing was elevated to IEEE Fellow for her contributions to gallium nitride high-electron-mobility transistors and wide-bandgap semiconductor devices.

In 2023, Xing was appointed director of SUPREME (SUPeRior Energy-efficient Materials and dEvices), a $34 million Semiconductor Research Corporation JUMP 2.0 research center headquartered at Cornell that connects more than 25 faculty across 13 universities to advance energy-efficient semiconductor materials and microelectronics systems.

Xing established and directs the Jena-Xing Laboratory at Cornell with Debdeep Jena.

She worked with Debdeep Jena to create GaN power diodes capable of serving as the building blocks for future GaN power switches. The group built a GaN power-switching device that could support 2,000 volts of electricity. As a result of her research, Xing was selected to join the national consortium to develop future cellular infrastructure. National Science Foundation CAREER Award, 2009 U.S. Department of Defense Multidisciplinary Research Initiative (MURI) grant, 2011 Fellow, American Physical Society, 2019 Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2021 U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy grant, 2021 Fellow, IEEE, 2022, "for contributions to GaN high-electron-mobility transistors" Semiconductor Industry Association / Semiconductor Research Corporation University Research Award in Technology, 2025

Personal life Xing is married to Debdeep Jena, a fellow professor of electrical and computer engineering at Cornell, with whom she frequently collaborates on research.