2023 Buessem Award Recipient

Dragan Damjanovic has earned his BSc in Physics from the University of Sarajevo and a PhD in Ceramic Science from the Pennsylvania State University. Since 1991, he has been affiliated with the Ceramics Laboratory, Institute of Materials, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), where he retired as the head of the Group for Ferroelectrics and Functional Oxides. He currently holds the title of Professor Emeritus at EPFL.

Dr. Damjanovic is a Fellow of the IEEE and the American Ceramic Society. He is presently serving as the President-elect of the IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Society (UFFC-S). His scientific contributions have garnered several awards, including the Humboldt Research Award, the International Award from the Japanese Conference on Ferroelectric Materials and Their Applications, and the Outstanding Achievement Award presented by the International Symposium on Integrated Ferroelectrics. He has been honored with the Distinguished Service, Distinguished Lecturer, Ferroelectrics Recognition, and Robert E. Newnham Ferroelectrics awards from the IEEE UFFC-S. In 2021, he received recognition from students as the best teacher in the Materials Science section at EPFL.

His research is centered around ferroelectric, piezoelectric, and dielectric materials employed in sensors, actuators, and transducers. Damjanovic’s primary interest lies in comprehending the interplay between properties, defects and external fields in oxides, organometallics, and organic materials, manifested in form of crystals, ceramics, films, and composites.

Damjanovic has also shared his expertise as a visiting scientist and lecturer at the University of Oulu, the Technical University of Darmstadt, the Jozef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana, and the Polytechnic University of Barcelona. He has authored or co-authored over 200 papers and has 10 patents.