3 UCLA Engineering faculty members named to National Academy of Inventors

Three professors from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering have been elected as fellows of the National Academy of Inventors, the highest professional distinction awarded solely to inventors.

Rafail Ostrovsky, Gaurav Sant and Yang Yang are among the academy's 2024 class of 170 fellows, representing 39 U.S. states and 12 countries across 135 research universities, governmental and nonprofit research institutions worldwide. The UCLA trio became the latest of nearly 30 fellows across campus, including 26 affiliated with UCLA Samueli, since the NAI Fellows Program was founded in 2012.

"I am delighted to see three of our faculty members elected to the National Academy of Inventors this year," said Ah-Huyng "Alissa" Park, the Ronald and Valerie Sugar Dean of UCLA Samueli. "It is a testament to their ingenuity, innovation and invaluable contribution to solving real-world challenges and engineering positive change for humanity."

Ostrovsky is a distinguished professor in computer science and mathematics and the Norman E. Friedmann Professor in Knowledge Sciences at UCLA Samueli. He heads the multidisciplinary Center of Information and Computation Security, which aims to promote all aspects of research and education in cryptography and computer security. Ostrovsky's research focuses on theoretical and practical applications of cryptography, network algorithms, and search and classification of large-scale data.

Among Ostrovsky's many accolades are the 2017 Edward J. McCluskey Technical Achievement Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE; the 2018 RSA Excellence in Mathematics Award; and the IEEE Computer Society's highest technical honor, the W. Wallace McDowell Award, in 2022.

Ostrovsky holds 15 U.S. patents and has published more than 350 peer-reviewed papers. He is a foreign member of Academia Europaea, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Computing Machinery, the IEEE and the International Association of Cryptologic Research.

Sant is the Pritzker Professor of Sustainability, with faculty appointments at the departments of civil and environmental engineering and materials science and engineering. He directs the Institute for Carbon Management at UCLA, which develops and accelerates the commercialization of climate change mitigation technologies.

Since 2021, Sant has co-founded several UCLA startups, including CarbonBuilt - winner of the 2021 NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE - and Equatic, one of Time magazine's 2023 Best Inventions and a finalist for the 2024 EarthShot Prize.

A member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, Sant has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers and earned support from governments, philanthropic foundations and Fortune 500 companies for his research and technology translation efforts. This year, he was selected as a Forbes Sustainability Leader and named to the TIME100 Climate list for his role in building North America's first commercial-scale, ocean-based carbon removal facility. He has also received awards from the National Science Foundation, American Concrete Institute and the American Institute for Chemical Engineers.

Yang is the Carol and Lawrence E. Tannas, Jr. Professor in Engineering and a distinguished professor and chair of the materials science and engineering department. A member of CNSI at UCLA, he leads a research lab exploring organic and hybrid electronic materials and devices. The team focuses on high-efficiency, low-cost thin film solar cells, metal oxide transistors and wearable electronic devices.

Yang's contributions to the field of organic photovoltaics have led to many cutting-edge technologies, such as inverted organic solar cells, efficient polymer-based solar cells and photovoltaic polarizers for LCD applications. He holds 38 patents and has published more than 400 peer-reviewed papers.

Since 2015, Yang has been consistently named among the world's most influential scholars in Clarivate's annual Highly Cited Researchers list. He is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and the Advanced Materials Hall of Fame. In 2019, he received the Sustainable Energy Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry, of which he is a fellow.

The National Academy of Inventors is a nonprofit member organization with more than 4,600 individual members worldwide. With the election of the 2024 class, the academy now has 2,068 fellows across the globe. According to the academy, fellows hold more than 68,000 U.S. patents and 20,000 licensed technologies, with their innovations generating over $3 trillion in revenue and 1 million jobs. The 2024 class of fellows will be honored and presented their medals at the NAI 14th Annual Meeting on June 26, 2025, in Atlanta, Georgia.

"This year's Class of NAI Fellows represents a truly impressive caliber of inventors," said Paul Sanberg, president of the NAI. "Through their work, they are making significant contributions to science, creating lasting societal impact, and growing the economy."

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