Dr. John Moore, Chairman Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. John J. Moore is a Materials Scientist who holds the position of Trustees' Professor and Head of Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. Dr. Moore is also Director of the interdisciplinary graduate program in Materials Science and Director of the Advanced Coatings and Surface Engineering Laboratory, ACSEL, at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. Dr. Moore established the Advanced Coatings and Surface Engineering Laboratory (ACSEL) at the Colorado School of Mines in 1994.  The main objective of ACSEL is to perform fundamental research in advanced PVD and CVD systems that will aid the U.S. thin films, coatings and surface engineering industry.  ACSEL is a national and international leader in research on advanced coatings, surface engineering and thin film processing. Dr. Moore was awarded a B.Sc. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Surrey, UK, in 1966, a Ph.D. in Industrial Metallurgy from the University of Birmingham, UK, in 1969, and a D.Eng. from the School of Materials of the University of Birmingham, UK, in 1996.

 
Dr. Richard K. Ahrenkiel, Member Scientific Advisory Board

Richard K. Ahrenkiel is a Research Professor of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. He is also a Consultant and Research Fellow Emeritus at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, (formerly the Solar Energy Research Institute) Golden, Colorado, where he has worked from 1981 to 2005. He became a Research Fellow at NREL in 2000. His area of specialization is the measurement and characterization of photovoltaic cells and materials. He is one of the world experts in the area of carrier recombination and carrier lifetime. He also works in photovoltaic device design and modeling. He received a B.S. degree in Engineering Physics and the M.S. and Ph.D degrees in Physics at the University of Illinois, Urbana. He joined the staff of the Research Laboratories of the Eastman Kodak Company. From 1972-76, he worked on the newly founded electronic photography project using silicon charge coupled devices as sensing elements. He joined Laser Division of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976 (then LASL), and in 1978, he became a Group Leader in the Electronics Division of LANL. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the American Vacuum Society, and the Optical Society of America.

Dr. Edward T. Yu, Member Scientific Advisory Board

Edward Yu received his A.B. (summa cum laude) and A.M. degrees in Physics from Harvard University in 1986, and his Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1991.  In September 1992, following a one-year postdoctoral appointment at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, he joined the faculty of the University of California, San Diego as Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.  He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1996 and Professor in 1998.  Professor Yu has been the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award (1995), an ONR Young Investigator Award (1995), an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (1995), and the UCSD ECE Graduate Teaching Award (1997).  He has served on numerous conference organizing committees and currently serves as General Chair/Past Program Chair of the TMS Electronic Materials Committee and Electronic Materials Conference, and Fellow of the DARPA Defense Sciences Research Council (DSRC).   At UCSD Professor Yu directs a research laboratory concerned generally with the characterization, understanding, and application of physical phenomena and of material and device properties at nanometer to atomic length scales.  Current research interests in his group include III-V nitride heterostructure materials and device physics; scanning probe characterization of advanced electronic materials and devices; solid-state nanoscience and nanotechnology; and photovoltaics and other technologies for energy generation.  The results of his research have been reported in over 140 refereed journal and conference publications and over 150 conference and seminar presentations.

Dr. Michael A. Russak, Member Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. Russak has over thirty five years of industrial experience progressing from a research scientist to senior executive officer of two public companies.  He has expertise in thin film materials and devices for magnetic recording, photovoltaic, solar thermal applications, semiconductor devices as well as glass, glass-ceramic and ceramic materials.  He also has over twelve years experience at the executive management level of public companies with significant off shore development and manufacturing functions.  He received his B.S. in Ceramic Engineering in 1968 and Ph.D. in Materials Science in 1971, both from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ.  During his career, he has been a contributing scientist and program manager at the Grumman Aerospace Corporation, a Research Staff Member and technical manager in the areas of thin film materials and processes at the Research Division of the IBM Corporation at the T.J. Watson Research Laboratories. In 1993, he joined HMT Technology, a manufacturer of thin film disks for magnetic storage, as Vice President of Research and Development.  His responsibilities included new product design and introduction. Dr. Russak became Chief Technical Officer of HMT and held that position until 2000 when HMT merged with Komag Inc.  Dr. Russak was appointed President and Chief Technical Officer of the combined company.  He continued to set technical, operational and business direction for Komag until his retirement at the end of 2006.  Dr. Russak is currently Executive Director of IDEMA-US, the trade association for the Hard Disk Drive Industry. He has published over 90 technical papers, and holds 23 U.S. patents.