Ted Sargent

Edward Hartley Sargent is a Canadian scientist at Northwestern University. Previously, he served as University Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and vice-president of Research and Innovation, and Strategic Initiatives at the University of Toronto. He also is the Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology. He is in the Departments of Chemistry and of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northwestern University, and is affiliated with the International Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern.

Sargent has made contributions in the use of colloidal quantum dots and perovskite materials for optoelectronic devices, including photovoltaic cells, photodetectors, and light emitting materials. Sargent has also published in the area of electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide.

Sargent has been honored with multiple awards for his research, including a Killam Prize for Engineering in 2020, He studied Engineering Physics at Queen's University at Kingston, earning his B.Sc.Eng. in 1995. Sargent then conducted graduate studies in Electrical and Computer Engineering, in the area of Photonics, at the University of Toronto, with Prof. Jingming Xu. He graduated with his Ph.D. in 1998. He was promoted to associate professor in 2002, and full Professor in 2005. In 2015, Sargent was appointed as University Professor, the University of Toronto's most distinguished rank.

Sargent has also held multiple administrative roles within the University of Toronto. From 2009 to 2012, he served as Associate Chair of Research, for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Since 2020, he has served as the vice-president, Research and Innovation, and Strategic Initiatives. and in April 2018 he was a Distinguished Visiting professor at the Rowland Institute at Harvard University.

In 2005, he published for the general public about nanotechnology and its applications in everyday life, The Dance of Molecules: How Nanotechnology is Changing Our Lives.

University spin-offs Sargent has also co-founded several university spin-off companies. In 2006, he founded InVisage Technologies, which was acquired by Apple in 2017. With Prof. Shana Kelley, Sargent co-founded Xagenic in 2010, a molecular diagnostics company. Xagenic was partially acquired in 2018 by the General Atomics - Electromagnetic Systems Group (GA-EMS). With Dr. Sjoerd Hoogland, Sargent also co-founded QD Solar in 2014, which aims to develop tandem solar cells using perovskites and quantum dots.

Awards and memberships Sargent has been honored with multiple awards and learned society memberships for his research, including: Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 2009 Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers since 2011 Awarded an NSERC Silver Medal in 1999 Outstanding Engineer Award of the IEEE Canada in 2002 Named one of Canada's Top 40 Under 40 for 2003-2004 Named a member of the Scientific American 50 for 2004-2005 Named a KAUST Global Research Partnership Investigator in 2008 Awarded the Steacie Prize in 2012 Awarded the NSERC Brockhouse Award in Interdisciplinary Research and Engineering with Shana Kelley in 2016 Awarded a Killam Prize for Engineering in 2020

Personal life Sargent is married to fellow Northwestern Professor Shana Kelley. They met at a nanotechnology conference at UC Irvine, and have two children together.