Michael G. Spencer was born in Detroit, MI, and raised in Washington DC. He received the B.S., M.Eng., and Ph.D. degrees from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, in 1974, 1975, and 1981, respectively. He is currently a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Morgan State University; he is also a Professor Emeritus of engineering at Cornell University. He has more than 36 years of research experience in compound semiconductors, such as GaAs, SiC, and AlN and more recently graphene, materials growth and characterization of these systems, as well as the fabrication and measurement of microwave devices, solar cells, and betavoltaics. His particular interest has been in the correlation of device performance with material growth and processing parameters. Recent work has emphasized graphene and wide band-gap materials (with focus on cubic Boron Nitride). He taught for 18 years in the Engineering School of Howard University, Washington, D.C., a historically black college. He has authored more than 2350 publications (per Google citations 14,835 citations h index of 47 i10-index 144) in the area of compound semiconductor research and over 20 U.S. patents many in the area of betavoltaics. Dr. Spencer is a co-founder of the start up company Widetronix (which is developing nuclear batteries made from SiC).