Dr. Daniel Feezell is an Assistant Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of New Mexico (UNM). He received the Ph.D. degree in 2005 under the direction of Prof. Larry Coldren at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB). His current research interests include epitaxial growth, fabrication, and characterization of group III-nitride materials and devices, including nonpolar/semipolar orientations; solid-state lighting and high-efficiency LEDs; nanoscale selective-area epitaxy; superluminescent diodes; visible edge-emitting and vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs); nonpolar intersubband photodetectors; and III-nitride nanophotonics.

Dr. Feezell has been active in III-V semiconductor materials and device research for 15 years, including crystal growth, device fabrication, and materials and device characterization. Previous research activities have resulted in significant advancements in III-nitrides and III-phosphides. As a doctoral student, numerous contributions were made to InP-based VCSELs, including the development of selectively etched tunnel junction apertures and record-high differential efficiencies.

Immediately prior to joining UNM, Dr. Feezell was a Project Scientist in the Solid-State Lighting and Energy Center at UCSB from 2010-2012. Working in the research group of Prof. Shuji Nakamura, he led much of the early materials and device research on nonpolar and semipolar light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and laser diodes, unraveling many of the novel properties of these alternative orientations and generating numerous publications and patents. A significant accomplishment during this period includes the first demonstration of a nonpolar GaN-based VCSEL. From 2008-2010, Dr. Feezell was a Senior Device Scientist and the first employee at Soraa, Inc., where he developed high-performance GaN-based laser diodes and LEDs and studied the properties of nonpolar InGaN QWs. As a postdoctoral researcher, the Dr. Feezell received the 30th Annual Japanese Journal of Applied Physics Paper Award for his role in the achievement of the first nonpolar GaN-based edge-emitting laser diodes. 

Dr. Feezell is the recipient of a 2015 National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award to study GaN-based VCSELs and a 2013 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award (YFA) with a follow-on Director's Fellowship in 2015 to study high-speed nanophotonic LEDs. Dr. Feezell is a Senior Member of IEEE and the Sources Thrust leader in the Lighting Enabled Systems and Applications Engineering Research Center (ERC) with Rensselaer Polytechnic University. He has authored or co-authored over 80 journal and conference publications, several U.S. patents, and a book chapter entitled "Nonpolar and Semipolar Group III-Nitride Lasers."