Physics PhD student Jimmy Zhu (below) isn't sure what to do; his advisor is somewhere in Africa speculating on currency. Left to his own devices, he works on projects that interest him, specifically magnetic data storage, which encompasses arguably the most vital part of a computer: the hard drive. Through computer modeling, he illustrates key problems facing magnetic data storage technologies, which aids engineers in making advancements.

Eventually earning his PhD, Zhu revolutionizes the field of magnetic data storage along the way. Now, more than 30 years later, the Carnegie Mellon professor is director of the university's Data Storage Systems Center. His research has led to improved hard drive capacity, which in the 1980s was about 10 megabytes. Today, terabyte hard drives—literally one million times the capacity—are available for about $50.

Zhu stresses the need to continue innovating ways to increase magnetic data storage capacity. He imagines a day in which hard drives will "talk" to one another. For instance, your car talks to your house, which tells your family how far away you are, which tells your cell phone who is home.

Although he has won numerous awards, he is especially pleased to have recently received the Magnetics Society Achievement Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, which has 400,000 members in 160 countries. The award honors lifetime achievement, but Zhu says his career is far from over: "We're creating a road for the future."

—Shannon Deep (CMU'10, 'HNZ'11)