Dr. Wiley Price Kirk is a noted educator and physicist who has amassed more than 50 years of experience in his chosen fields. Interested in the sciences from a formative age, he was always drawn to research and the laboratory, thus establishing the foundation for the remainder of his career. While pursuing his PhD at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he served as a technical collaborator at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, from 1969 to 1970 before completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Florida in Gainesville in 1972. Remaining with the university, he was employed as an assistant professor of physics until his departure in 1975.
From 1975 to 1977, Dr. Kirk served Texas A&M University in College Station as an assistant professor of physics, and subsequently ascended the ranks to associate professor and full professor of physics until 1999. From there, he became a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington, a role he held until 2008. A former visiting professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas for three years, he has been a research professor of materials sciences and engineer at the University of Texas at Arlington since 2011.
Alongside his primary pursuits, Dr. Kirk has been president and chief executive officer of 3D Epitaxial Technologies LLC since 2015, a nonprofit research and development company located in Richardson, Texas. Contributing over 120 refereed articles to professional journals, he is renowned for the development of II-VI chalcogenide systems grown on Si as layered heterostructures by molecular beam epitaxy for quantum electronic devices and solar-cell applications, as well as the development of selenium passivation of Si (001) surfaces resulted in improved electrical properties. Additionally, he was the first to measure the quantum Hall effect in II-VI compound semiconductors and he has conducted extensive studies of anisotropic weak localization effects in semiconductor superlattices. Notably, he was the first to demonstrate the first gate adjusted resonant tunnel diode device, among other achievements.
When asked of his career highlights, Dr. Kirk notes that his crowning moments were the opportunities he had to work on projects that became close to becoming Nobel Prize winners. Additionally, he is proud of having worked at the Brookhaven National Laboratory during his doctoral studies, noting that his experiences there helped him write his doctoral dissertation.
The recipient of the National Bureau of Standards Precision Measurements Award from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in 1987, Dr. Kirk has been a grantee of the National Science Foundation since 1973. Married to the late Sally Ann Kirk since 1964, he is the proud father of two children, Camille Maura and Dr. Alexander Price. He also has a beloved granddaughter, Isabella.
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