Biography
Roger T. Howe is the William E. Ayer Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, as well as the Acting Faculty Director of the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility. He earned a B.S. degree in physics from Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, California and an M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1981 and 1984. After faculty positions at Carnegie-Mellon University in 1984-1985 and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1985-1987, he returned to Berkeley where he was a Professor until 2005.
His research interests include micro electromechanical system (MEMS) design, micro/nanomachining processes, and self-assembly processes. A major focus of his research from the early 1980s until recently was technologies for integrated microsystems, which incorporate both silicon integrated circuits and micromechanical structrures. Recently, his research has shifted to nano electromechanical systems (NEMS), for applications ranging from chemical sensors to relays and logic devices. Prof. Howe has made contributions to the design of MEMS accelerometers, gyroscopes, electrostatic actuators, and microresonators. He was elected an IEEE Fellow in 1996, was co-recipient of the 1998 IEEE Cledo Brunetti Award, was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2005. In 2015, he was co-recipient of the inaugural IEEE Electron Devices Society Robert Bosch Micro and Nano Electromechanical Systems Award for his contributions to MEMS processes, devices, and systems and the 2015 IEEE Electron Devices Society Education Award. He was a co-founder of Silicon Clocks, Inc., a start-up company that commercialized poly-SiGe integrated MEMS-on-CMOS for timing applications, which was acquired by Silicon Laboratories, Inc., in April 2010. In December 2015, he co-founded ProbiusDx, based on research in his group on label-free biomolecular sensing platforms.
From December 2009 through September 2017, he was the Faculty
Director of the Stanford
Nanofabrication Facility (SNF) and was the Acting Faculty
Director from May 2020 through September 2021. From 2011 - 2015,
he was the Director of the National Nanotechnology
Infrastructure Network (NNIN). From September - December 2018,
he was a Visiting Professor at the Thayer School of
Engineering at Dartmouth.