Awards

• 2021 – Delft Technology Fellowship, accepted 2022 
• 2018 – Stanford Graduate Internship Experience in Germany Fellowship
• 2015 – 2018 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow

Expertise

• Gallium Nitride, Silicon Carbide, Gallium Oxide
• Power Semiconductor Devices
• Microelectromechanical Systems
• Hall Effect Sensors
• Microfabrication

Biography

Dr. Karen Dowling was born in Seattle, USA in 1991 and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She recieved her B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2013. She obtained her M.S. and PhD in EE from Stanford University in California, USA in 2015 and 2019, respectively. Her thesis focused on creating high quality magnetometers for extreme environments using Gallium Nitride, as well as some micromachining techniques in Silicon Carbide, both wide bandgap semiconductors. Before joining TU Delft, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), expanding her work to RF opto-electronic power devices known as photo-semiconductor switches. She joined TU Delft as an assistant professor in August 2022.  In the Department of Microelectronics , Dr. Dowling is excited to combine both her love of sensors for harsh environments with optically coupled conduction mechanisms to open new avenues for high performing microsensors across the spectrum from fundamental research to device development and (someday) deployment.

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