On 21 September 2026, Professor Wei Zhang from the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Xi’an Jiaotong University was conferred the Ovshinsky Lectureship Award at the 24th European Phase-Change and Ovonics Symposium (E\PCOS), held in Leuven, Belgium.
Established in 2014 in memory of Stanford Ovshinsky, the founding father of phase-change memory field, the Ovshinsky Lectureship Award is conferred annually upon leading scientists and engineers worldwide who have made outstanding contributions to fundamental research or industrial applications of phase-change memory technologies. It is widely regarded as the highest academic honour in the field of phase-change research. Previous recipients include distinguished researchers from top-tier universities such as the University of Oxford and Politecnico di Milano, as well as senior experts from leading technology companies including IBM, STMicroelectronics, Intel, and Micron.
Professor Wei Zhang was the only recipient of this award in 2026 and he is also the first recipient from mainland China since the award was established. According to the E\PCOS organising committee, the award recognises his “fundamental contribution to designing new phase-change materials with desired properties by large scale simulations, including accurate computer simulations on a device-scale level.” Research on structural and functional materials is one of the core research directions of the State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, and has received strong support from local and national governments as well as the university. Looking ahead, Professor Wei Zhang’s team will continue to advance research in phase-change memory and in-memory computing technologies, and to build an integrated innovation ecosystem linking industry, academia, research, and real-world applications. Through fundamental innovation in materials, the team will push forward the engineering and technological development of next-generation memory devices.
Professor Wei Zhang’s personal website: https://gr.xjtu.edu.cn/en/web/wzhang0
