White House Author

Dr. Sivalingam (Siva) Sivananthan is a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor and Director of the Microphysics Laboratory (MPL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He is also the founder of the high-tech, Bell Labs-styled incubator, Sivananthan Laboratories, Inc., based in Bolingbrook, Illinois. Born in Chavakacheri, Sri Lanka, Dr. Sivananthan is a world-renowned physicist as well as a successful entrepreneur in creating advanced military infrared night vision technology, which has also served as the platform for ground-breaking, next generation solar cells. To that end, he helped found InSPIRE (the non-profit Institute for Solar Photovoltaic Innovation, Research, and Edu-training), whose mission is training Illinois’s workforce and exciting Illinois undergraduate and high school students to create a renewable energy and solar eco-system in Illinois. His mission in life has been always to give his very best—to his family and friends, his students, his research, his business, his country, and the world at large.