About

As seen in The Daily July 1, 2024 – Faculty members retire with more than 20 years at CWRU

Ken Singer

College of Arts and Sciences
34 years

For Ken Singer, entrepreneurship comes naturally. As the Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics at the College of Arts and Sciences, he leveraged that drive to create Folio Photonics, a spinoff that commercializes optical data storage products to address sustainability and energy problems in data centers.

The basis for the company comes out of Singer’s work in the Center for Layered Polymer Systems (CLiPS), a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center.

As a researcher, Singer’s work has focused on the electronic and optical properties of organic materials such as polymers and liquid crystals, including how these materials can be used in renewable energy, communication and optical data storage. His efforts have lent themselves to other ventures as well, including his founding of the Materials for Opto/electronic Research and Education (MORE) Center and the university’s engineering physics programs. Singer also co-founded the Great Lakes Energy Institute and the Institute for Advanced Materials.

But for as much as he enjoyed advancing research, a key part of Singer’s role at CWRU centered on supporting other people. More than 110 individuals from postdoctoral scholars to K-12 students have benefited from Singer’s mentorship.

“I will miss the interactions and relationships I have formed with my colleagues, many of whom I have collaborated with over the years,” Singer said. “As my field is inherently interdisciplinary, I have developed collaborative and personal relationships in the sciences and engineering and more recently with my colleagues in the art history and art department on our joint project on machine learning applied to cultural heritage preservation.”

Singer was recognized for his scholarly contributions in 2020 with the university’s Faculty Distinguished Research Award.