Berger earns Fulbright-Nokia Distinguished Chair honor

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Paul Berger

Paul Berger, professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been awarded the prestigious 2020-2021 Fulbright-Nokia Distinguished Chair, considered among the most prestigious appointments in the Fulbright Scholar Program.

The Fulbright-Nokia Distinguished Chair in Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) offers a unique opportunity for a U.S. scholar and/or specialist to engage in international research, collaboration, teaching and lecturing at a higher education institution in Finland.

Berger will teach and conduct research at Tampere University for four months each during the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 academic years. He will research printed electronics for Internet-of-Everything devices like heart monitors and other technologies that communicate with sensors. Each sensor would resemble a thin, flexible postage stamp that will fasten to any object in order to monitor position, weight, temperature and pressure. This kind of monitoring could benefit wearable medical devices to track heart functionality, essentially cutting the wires of a hospital bed or charging power cord, or be applied to food waste reduction by bringing real-time inventory control into commercial kitchens.

This Fulbright will leverage a nine-year collaboration with Tampere University, and Berger has already directly participated in 8.8 million euros of investment in Finland since this partnership began.

Funded by the Nokia Foundation and the Fulbright Finland Foundation, the Fulbright-Nokia Distinguished Chair in ICT award emphasizes projects that prioritize active research work, including publications, yet also include lecturing and/or supervising students. The Fulbright-Nokia Chair is often asked to give a guest lecture at Nokia.