UMass Amherst

Neal G. Anderson

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Ph.D., North Carolina State University


As a child, Neal Anderson was captivated by radio. He vividly recalls sitting at the kitchen table with his father sketching on paper how the wireless communications devices work. "It not only made radio even more fascinating but also opened new worlds to me." Later on, he took apart electronic gadgets and even designed and built radios with parts he purchased from the local electronics shop. "My first radios didn't work," he admits. "But I was undeterred."

Professor Anderson's current studies bridge engineering and physics. "Information processing components are becoming so small and so fast that eventually silicon integrated circuit technology will bump into physical limits and you'll need new approaches," says Anderson. Nanoelectronics, the creation of circuits from molecule-sized electronic components, is one such approach. "But beyond a certain point, smaller is not necessarily better – the physics is different at the quantum scale. I'm interested in exploring the ultimate capabilities and limitations for information processing in nanoelectronics."

"I love the learning process and teaching allows me the most direct involvement in the process." As Electrical Engineering departmental honors coordinator, Professor Anderson has supervised a number of honors students and watched many others progress through the program. "I enjoy working with honors students because they tend to have a broad range of interests and talents and nearly boundless energy," he says. "They're really leveraging all the things they've learned into a research experience, and they do an amazing amount of work."