Hemant Thapar
Chair, CEO, and Founder
OmniTier, Inc.
MSEE 1977, PhD EE 1979
“My experience at Purdue has been invaluable to me during my career. I had highly accomplished advisors there who taught me the importance of steadfast discipline, persistence, and sense of optimism in conducting research. Those same qualities have come in handy for me in founding and building startups, and dealing with the risk and uncertainty inherent in those endeavors.”
Dr. Hemant Thapar earned an MS in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University in 1977 and a PhD in 1979. He is the Chairman, CEO, and Co-founder of OmniTier. Thapar previously founded and led two successful startups, DataPath Systems and Link_A_Media Devices, which delivered many “industry firsts” in data recovery technologies, SoCs, and Controllers for data storage-- contributing to the shipment of hundreds of millions of chips for data storage devices.
During his early career, Thapar held various technical and management positions with Bell Telephone Laboratories, Holmdel and the IBM Corporation, San Jose, where he made groundbreaking contributions in the areas of circuit-switched networking, data communications, and data storage.
Thapar is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, an IEEE Fellow, and a recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from Santa Clara University. He is co-recipient of three best paper awards for his work on high-speed data transmission and high-density data storage. Thapar served as a guest editor of two special issues of the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications devoted to high-density data storage technologies.
Thapar serves on the Board of Directors of Assia Corporation, and the advisory boards of the School of Engineering, Santa Clara University and the Ambala College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (India).