Dr. Avrutin received his Ph.D. in Physics & Mathematics from Russian Academy of Sciences in 1999, and M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from National University of Science and Technology MISiS, Moscow, Russia. After working as an invited scientist at University of Ulm, Germany and postdoctoral research associate at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), he joined VCU as a research assistant professor in 2010. He is currently an associate professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of VCU. Dr. Avrutin has authored and co-authored over 160 journal articles, ~200 conference proceeding and presentations, and 5 book chapters related to growth, fabrication, characterization, and electronic, optoelectronic, and photonic applications of III-V, Si-Ge, and wide bandgap semiconductors semiconductor materials as well as multifunctional oxides. He is a member of IEEE, member of APS, and member of MRS. Dr. Avrutin has served as principal investigator and co-principal investigator for several NSF, DoD, VCU, state and industry funded projects. He served on organizing committees of several international scientific conferences.

Dr. Avrutin's research interest encompass the development of novel electronic, optoelectronic, photonic, and biomedical devices, insight into materials' physics, and advancement of growth and micro/nanofabrication methods. He has made significant contributions to the development of low-defect density GaN films, and plasmonic-quality TiN and Al- and Ga-doped ZnO, and diluted ferromagnetic semiconductor GaMnAs. He was the first to demonstrate that the growth under near-stoichiometric conditions allows the concurrent control over carrier (hole) density and concentration of interstitial As acting as both a compensation center and forming a antiferromagnetic complex with Mn. This insight led to the substantial increase in the Curie temperature. In the effort to improve the performance of InGaN blue LEDs, Dr. Avrutin with his colleagues at VCU ECE department and international collaborators explored nonpolar and semipolar GaN orientations, designs of electron injectors for mitigating the hot electron effect, and demonstrated an efficiency of Mg δ-doped barriers for improved hole injection in the LED structures and to improve further the LED efficiencies at high injection levels.

Dr. Avrutin's current research is focused on the development of micro- and nano-electromechanical systems for non-software logic solver applications, plasmonic-enhanced single-photon emitters based on semiconductor quantum dots, and wearable bio-medical sensor systems based on semiconductor nanostructures. Additionally, as an associate director of C. Kenneth and Dianne Harris Wright Virginia Microelectronics Center (VMC), pe puts substantial efforts to provide state-of-the-art micro-/nanofabrication capabilities for the VCU research community.