Most Promising Engineer, Ph.D. - Military

Within five years of completing his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles and becoming joining the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, Dr. Carlos M. Torres stood out amongst his peers.

In his role as a Researcher and Electronics Engineer in the Enterprise Communications and Networks Division, Dr. Torres’s work epitomizes the word “unique.”  His focus is on developing novel, two-dimensional material-based device concepts and using these devices in ways that have never been explored before.

Dr. Torres was the Principal Investigator of a multi-year, internally funded research project titled, “Voltage-Tunable Wavelength-Agile 2D Material-Based Light-Emitting Transistors (2D-LETs).” He is also the Principal Investigator of an internally funded research project titled, “Quantum- Engineered Nanodevices Exploiting Twistronics for Electromagnetic Maneuver Warfare (EMW) and C4ISR (QENETEC).”

These two projects demonstrate his creativity and innovation in creating emerging optoelectronic technologies that will provide many benefits to the future work of NIWC Pacific and can provide potential asymmetric advantage to the future warfighters in the areas of spectrum dominance and electromagnetic maneuver warfare.

Dr. Torres took the initiative to create a new 2D Materials Laboratory called The Quantum-Engineered Nano Devices Laboratory, and his efforts have enabled NIWC Pacific to rapidly become a recognized leader in the quantum arena since the Lab’s opening in October of 2018.

He has two patents issued with six more patents pending related to 2D materials, and he’s co-authored over seventeen prestigious, peer-reviewed journal articles.

Dr. Torres was a co-recipient of a 2016 Federal Laboratory Consortium Far West Regional Award for Outstanding Technology Development for “Graphene-Based Technologies Using Liquid-Metal Electrodes.”

Growing up as the son of a Puerto Rican doctor of internal medicine, there was no question that Dr. Torres would eventually be college bound. An early interest in video games steered him towards a STEM career but he found his Computer Software Engineering courses at the University of Florida less interesting than he had thought they would be and soon switched to a dual Electrical Engineering and Physics major.

After earning bachelor’s degrees in both fields, he received a Department of Defense Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship that allowed him to pursue his Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering at UCLA where he spent many late nights and early mornings in the engineering labs working feverishly on his dissertation.

In addition to his many professional duties at his current position at the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, Dr. Torres has volunteered at many events with Hispanic youth in San Diego, participating in talks to high school students designed to promote success in pursuing STEM majors in college and graduate school.