Two UF Engineers named to the 2026 National Academy of Inventors Senior Membership
Two faculty members from the University of Florida’s Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, Curtis Taylor, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Engineering Education and Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Hamed Dalir, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, have been named Senior Members of the National Academy of Inventors, the organization announced today.
They are part of the 230 emerging academic inventors identified by NAI member institutions and welcomed to the 2026 class of senior members. This year’s class of senior members is the largest to date and comes from 82 National Academy of Inventors member institutions across the nation.
“This year’s senior member class is a truly impressive cohort. These innovators come from a variety of fields and disciplines, translating their technologies into tangible impact,” said Paul R. Sanberg, president of NAI. “I commend them on their incredible pursuits and I’m honored to welcome them to the Academy.”
Taylor is a nationally recognized leader in engineering education, and his work bridges the gap between advanced research and practical application. His research encompasses two distinct domains: advanced manufacturing and engineering education technologies. His work spans the discovery of novel smart materials and manufacturing processes, as well as the creation of immersive educational technologies that improve STEM learning outcomes. These contributions have generated intellectual property, attracted significant research funding and fostered partnerships that benefit industry, health care and education. Taylor is the principal investigator for the Advanced Structures Lab and Immersive Engineering Education Lab.
“I’m honored to receive this recognition, which reflects the exceptional contributions of my students and collaborators,” said Taylor. “Together, we are committed to advancing fundamental research while driving innovations that have real world impact. I’m especially excited about our current efforts in adaptive composite materials for in-space manufacturing, as well as our development of immersive reality–based instructional methods that are reshaping how we teach engineering.”
Dalir is widely recognized for his leadership in system-level photonic integration and co-packaged optics architecture, advancing Very Large-Scale Photonic Integration (VLPI) for AI hardware, high-performance computing, semiconductor lasers and integrated sensing systems. His work bridges device-level innovation with heterogeneous packaging, wafer-scale photonic interposers, and energy-efficient optical I/O, enabling low-latency, sub-pJ/bit optical links compatible with advanced semiconductor foundry processes. He develops scalable electro-optic modulators, integrated laser platforms, and photonic interconnect fabrics designed for chip-to-chip optical routing and next-generation computing systems. Dalir has filed over 20 patents in photonic devices, system architectures, and integration technologies, several of which have been transferred to industry, like Fuji Xerox and Broadcom (Avago).
“I am honored to be named a senior member of the National Academy of Inventors,” said Dalir. “I am grateful to my students and collaborators whose dedication made these innovations possible. We design light to compute, sense, and connect more efficiently. From devices to systems, our motto is simple: Light. Logic. Impact.”
The 2026 class of senior members will be celebrated during the Senior Member Induction Ceremony at NAI’s 15th Annual Conference in June in Los Angeles.