C. Fred Higgs, III is an associate professor in the mechanical engineering department at Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating from FAMU High School in Tallahassee, Florida, Dr. Higgs received his BS degree in mechanical engineering from Tennessee State University (Go BigBlue!). Later, he earned his MS and PhD degrees in mechanical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in thermal fluids and tribology. Prior to coming to Carnegie Mellon, he completed a postdoctorate at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.

An affiliated faculty member in the Center for Multiscale Modeling of Engineering Materials (CM2EM), the Center for Silicon System Implementation (CSSI), the Data Storage Systems Center (DSSC), and the electrical and computer engineering department, he has been an invited speaker in numerous venues, including the upcoming International Conference on Abrasive Processes, International VLSI/ULSI Multilevel Interconnection Conference, Hitachi GST, and Intel. He is an Associate Editor of the STLE Tribology Transactions journal, in addition to being the lead organizer of the 2009 Materials Research Society Annual Spring Meeting CMP Symposium. With over 40 archival publications, Professor Higgs was recently invited to be a research fellow in the DOE/NETL Institute for Advanced Energy Studies. In 2007, he was awarded the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award, which is the NSF’s most prestigious grant for the nation’s top young faculty. A Sloan PhD program professor, he is also involved with the Pittsburgh community.