Georgia Institute of Technology School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Ph.D. candidate Fabia Farlin Athena received the Materials Research Society (MRS) Graduate Student Silver Award at the organization’s Fall 2023 Meeting in Boston, MA.

She won the award for her research on emerging materials and devices that promote energy-efficient computing. MRS brings together materials researchers from around the world to promote the sharing and communication of interdisciplinary research and technology to improve the quality of life.

She is advised by Eric M. Vogel, Ph.D., ECE adjunct professor and Hightower Professor in the School of Materials Science & Engineering (MSE).

Athena, who is also an IBM Ph.D. Fellow, presented her award-winning research at the meeting, and gave talks about two of her other research projects, “A Novel Electrical Bias Technique to Recover Degraded ReRAM Arrays for Deep Learning” and “Describing the Analog Resistance Change of HfOx Neuromorphic Synapses.”

She was also one of five global finalists for the Arthur Nowick Graduate Student Award for teaching and mentoring.

This is the latest in a growing list of honors for Athena. She’s also been recognized with the ECE Ph.D. Fellowship, Cadence Diversity in Technology Scholarship, EECS Rising Stars 2023, and Colonel Oscar P. Cleaver Award for the most outstanding Ph.D. dissertation proposal in ECE.

Before her time at Georgia Tech, Athena received her undergraduate degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. She then spent two semesters at Purdue University as a graduate researcher, where she collaborated with Idaho National Lab on nuclear materials for next-generation energy.

Since coming to Georgia Tech, she’s received her M.S. in ECE and has been active in Women in Electrical and Computer Engineering (WECE) and Women in Material Science and Engineering (WiMSE), helping to increase the involvement of women and minorities in STEM.