Dr. Petra Specht is an Associate Scientist at the MSE Department of UC Berkeley. In 1996 she was awarded her PhD in Natural Sciences (Dr.rer.nat.) from the Technical University in Aachen, Germany while working at the Max-Planck Institute for Iron Research in Duesseldorf, on mechanical properties of single crystalline NiAl and FeAl intermetallics. In April 1996 she joined the Eicke Weber group, Mat.Sci.&Eng. Department at UC Berkeley. There, she worked on MBE-grown III-V semiconductor production, material characterization and prototype electronic device development. She invented a radiation-hard buffer layer for satellite electronics, and later specialized in radiation effects of high bandgap semiconductors. Since 2008 her research has been continuing in the Oscar Dubon group, with a focus on TEM characterization of semiconductor and catalytic materials. She collaborates with Dr. Christian Kisielowski since 2010.

Dr. Specht has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, her h-index is 25.