"'The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton'. This phrase, ascribed to the Duke of Wellington, implied that the British officers had acquired the important traits of leadership, strength of character, and competitiveness through their elite education at Eton. Purdue University and the School of Electrical Engineering in particular, was my Eton. Purdue gave me a strong educational foundation, but more importantly imbibed in me the intangibles needed for future success – strong work ethics, critical and analytic thinking, innovation and endurance and persistence to think through and address any problem. The people I met while at Purdue, my colleagues, professors and students, forged the principles of team work and collaboration, both critical to working successfully in a multi-cultural and global economy today. I am thankful for the education and direction I received at Purdue from some of the most brilliant minds in the field. I am honored and humbled to be receiving this award. I carry the Boilermaker badge with pride!"

 

Dr. Suresh Venkatesan is currently the Chief Executive Officer at POET Technologies, an advanced semiconductor development and manufacturing company dedicated to enabling the integration of photonics and electronics through both monolithic and hybrid approaches to device design and packaging.

 

Prior to joining POET Technologies in 2015, Dr. Venkatesan was Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at GLOBALFOUNDRIES, the world’s second largest semiconductor fabrication company. His responsibilities covered development and qualification of all technologies including the leading-edge logic and value added technologies like mixed signal analog, embedded non-volatile memories (NVM), RF, high voltage and MEMS. Dr. Venkatesan grew the 28nm business from zero to $2B, successfully building the technology foundations and qualifying it for market acceptance. He played a critical role in new customer acquisition and customer diversification. He was also instrumental in setting the foundation of the 14nm technology strategy for GLOBALFOUNDRIES. Prior to his Senior VP role, Dr. Venkatesan held a VP of Technology and Integration role when he joined the company in 2010.

 

During more than 20 years in the semiconductor foundry business, Dr. Venkatesan has held many director of technology development and foundry roles within Freescale and Motorola. He is the recipient of three high impact technology awards from Motorola, holds over 25 U.S. patents, and has co-authored more than 50 technical papers. He was inducted into the Scientific Advisory Board Associates (SABA) of Motorola (2004) and was nominated as a Freescale Fellow for his contribution in the development of various CMOS technologies serving the high performance networking, automotive, wireless and analog product market (2007).

 

Dr. Venkatesan received his bachelor’s of technology in electrical engineering (BTech, EE) degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in 1987, and master’s and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Purdue University in 1988 and 1992, respectively.