Alexander N. Cartwright, PhD, professor of electrical engineering in the University at Buffalo (UB) School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has been appointed UB's vice provost for strategic initiatives, a new position in which he will serve as the point person in the provost's office for the UB 2020 strategic strengths initiatives. Cartwright said he also Alexander N. Cartwright, a director of the Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics at the University of Buffalo, is UB's new vice provost for strategic strengths initiatives. plans to continue teaching and working in his lab -- the Laboratory for Advanced Spectroscopic Evaluation. A UB faculty member since 1995, his current research interests include ultrafast spectroscopy of the optical properties of semiconductor nanostructures, development of hybrid inorganic and organic materials and device structures for solar cells, design and fabrication of biological and chemical sensors, and development of methods for optical nondestructive testing of stress and strain for assessing device reliability. He serves as a director of the Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics, director of UB's National Science Foundation (NSF) Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship in Biophotonics: Materials and Applications and is a co-director of the Electronics Packaging Laboratory. An adjunct faculty member in the Department of Physics in the UB College of Arts and Sciences, he is a member of the Center for Spin Effects and Quantum Information in Nanostructures and the Center for Unified Biometrics and Sensors. Cartwright has also served as director of UB's Integrated Nanostructured Systems strategic strength initiative for the past year. He has won numerous research awards, including the Department of Defense Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award and the NSF CAREER award.