Greg Hampikian, a Boise State University faculty member in the biological science and criminal justice departments and director of the Idaho Innocence Project, has been named a charter fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

NAI fellows demonstrate a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating inventions that have affected quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society. There are 98 NAI fellows representing 54 universities and nonprofit  research institutes. Fellows will be inducted Feb. 22.

Hampikian is internationally recognized for his work in DNA forensics. He founded the Idaho Innocence Project ad BSU and helped establish the Georgia Innocence Project and the Irish Innocence Project. He and his collaborators work on a variety of DNA projects, including developing new cancer drugs, discovering new species of single-celled organisms in Idaho, studying Basque sex chromosomes and inventing micro devices. Hampikian has pioneered the study of nullomers, the smallest sequences of DNA and protein that do not exist in nature.