Electrical Engineering Welcomes Two New Faculty Members

Above: Xiaoqing Song

The Department of Electrical Engineering is pleased to welcome two new faculty members – Xiaoqing Song and Wei Du – to the University of Arkansas.

Xiaoqing Song is an assistant professor whose research includes power electronics and power packaging. In his work with wide bandgap semiconductors, he proposed a hybrid power switch concept using conventional silicon (Si) and the newer silicon carbide (SiC) together which taps into SiC’s ability to operate at higher voltages temperatures, and frequencies but still utilizes Si’s cost effective functions.

Before joining the U of A, Dr. Song was the Principal Scientist with ABB. Inc where he was leading multi-discipline research and R&D projects in the field of solid state and hybrid circuit breakers, protection coordination in low voltage and medium voltage DC distribution systems. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees with Beijing Institute of Technology, China, in 2009 and 2012, respectively, and received the Ph.D. degree with North Carolina State University in 2017, all in electrical engineering. He is the recipient of 2016 Outstanding Young European Power Electronics (EPE) Association Member Award, 2020 ABB Inventor of the Year Award and 2021 ABB Publisher of the Year Award.

Wei Du

Wei Du is an associate professor whose research includes photonics integrated circuits (PICs) and Nanotechnology. In his work, he is developing the group-IV based photonic components including lasers, waveguides, and photodetectors operating in near- and mid-infrared wavelengths. Moreover, he proposed the SiC-graphene based surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors for bio- and chemical-sensing applications. Such sensors can be integrated in PICs. Du joins the U of A from Wilkes University. During his time at Wilkes University, he won the Outstanding New Faculty Award in 2019, the President’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship in 2020, and the Outstanding Advisor Award in 2022. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Physics from Peking University and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, both in Beijing, China. Du was a postdoctoral scholar at the U of A from 2013-2015. We are excited to have him return to our campus.