Ali Shakouri is a professor of electrical and computer engineering and the Mary Jo and Robert L. Kirk Director of the Birck Nanotechnology Center at Purdue University . He received his Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology in 1995. His research interests include quantum electronics, nano and microscale heat and current transport in semiconductor devices, thermoelectric/thermionic energy conversion, submicron thermal imaging, micro refrigerators on a chip and novel optoelectronic integrated circuits.