Liesl Folks is an Australian-American engineer who is Professor at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

. Previously, she was appointed Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at the

in 2019 and was then asked to step down in 2023 based on her performance. Long-time and highly-distinguished professor and also a member of the faculty senate at UA, Prof. Ted Downing said in the YouTube video, Folks was highly confrontational and lacked trust with the faculty.

Early life and education

Folks is from Australia. She attended the

University of Western Australia The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany, Western Australia, Albany an ...

. She studied physics for her bachelor's degree, before starting a doctorate in the characterisation of ferromagnetic materials by AFM. In particular, she has contributed to research on transient properties of ferromagnetics. After graduating Folks joined the Faculty of the University of Western Australia as a postdoctoral research fellow, and conducted research on nanoscale permanent magnetic materials.

Research and career

Folks joined IBM, and conducted research in the area of magnetic force microscopy imaging of magnetic data storage materials. She moved to

Hitachi () is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Ni ...

with the hard disk drive business in 2003. Whilst working as a researcher at Hitachi, Folks spent a year at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

where she completed a

Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

. Alongside her hands-on research, Folks worked on engineering education programs, including initiatives for

pre-kindergarten Pre-kindergarten (also called Pre-K or PK) is a voluntary classroom-based preschool program for children below the age of five in the United States, Canada, Turkey and Greece (when kindergarten starts). It may be delivered through a preschool ...

and

K–12 K–12, from kindergarten to 12th grade, is an American English expression that indicates the range of years of publicly supported primary and secondary education found in the United States, which is similar to publicly supported school grade ...

education. She created a summer program for graduate students to study magnetic materials. In 2013, she was awarded the AVS Excellence in Leadership Award. After serving as a researcher from 1998 to 2013 at IBM and Hitachi, without any prior academic leadership or management experience, in 2013 after receiving an MBA from Cornell University, Folks was appointed Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University at Buffalo. That year she was also appointed in the voluntary role of President of the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

Magnetics Society, a professional society. At the University at Buffalo, she focussed on improving diversity and equity in science, with a particular focus on championing women and other historically marginalized groups. She served as Dean of Engineering when two new departments were launched at the University of Buffalo; materials design (a joint initiative at UB between to the School of Engineering & Applied Sciences and the College of Arts and Sciences) and engineering education. In 2021, Folks was elected Fellow of the

National Academy of Inventors The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) is a US non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging inventors in academia, following the model of the National Academies of the United States. It was founded at the University of South Florida in 2010. ...

Selected publications

Liesl Folks is a co-author on about 100 publications and a leading or first author on ~ 20 publications (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wni5L9IAAAAJ&hl=en). Her top-cited, first author publications are shown below. She has about 1000 citations from first author publications. 1) Perforated tips for high-resolution in-plane magnetic force microscopy, L. Folks, M. E. Best, P. M. Rice, B. D. Terris, and D. Weller, Appl. Phys. Lett. 76, 909 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1063/1.125626. Citations including self: 83. 2) The use of MFM for investigating domain structures in modern permanent magnet materials, L. Folks and R.C. Woodward, Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, Volume 190, Issues 1–2, 1 December 1998, Pages 28-41. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-8853(98)00272-8. Citations including self: 78. 3) Analysis and interpretation of time dependent magnetic phenomena, L. Folks and R. Street, Journal of Applied Physics 76, 6391 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1063/1.358276. Citations including self: 58. 4) Investigation of interaction mechanisms in melt‐quenched NdFeB, L. Folks, R. Street, and R. Woodward, Journal of Applied Physics 75, 6271 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1063/1.355421. Citations including self: 43

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Folks, Liesl Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American women engineers University of Arizona faculty Australian women engineers University of Western Australia alumni Cornell University alumni American women academics 21st-century American women Fellows of the National Academy of Inventors