William P. King, an Associate Professor in the Mechanical Science and Engineering Department at the University of Illinois, has joined the 3-D Micro- and Nanosystems group at Beckman.

King is Director of the Nanoscale Thermal Processing Laboratory at Illinois, which designs, fabricates, and uses tools for thermal and thermo-mechanical processing at the micro- and nanometer scales. His research group focuses on thermal engineering of microscale and nanoscale mechanical devices (such as micro-electromechanical systems or MEMS) and topics, including thermo-mechanical data storage and nanoscale thermal processing.

King earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. Before coming to Illinois he served on the faculty at Georgia Tech, and prior to that, worked as a researcher with the Micro/NanoMechanics Group at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory.

Kings awards include the CAREER award from the National Science Foundation in 2003, the PECASE award from the Department of Energy in 2005, an R&D Magazine Award, and the Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research (2007). Last year, Technology Review Magazine named him to its annual list of people under the age of 35 whose innovations are likely to change the world in 2006. He also sits on the board of seven companies.