Marrian Is AVS President-Elect

The president-elect of the AVS Science and Technology Society for 2005 is Christie Marrian. He succeeds David Aspnes (see Physics Today, January 2004, page 65 ), who is now the society’s president. Marrian will become president in 2006.

Marrian studied electrical engineering at Cambridge University; there he received his BA in 1973 and his PhD in 1978. After spending three years at CERN, he joined the surface physics branch at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, in 1980.

Five years later, Marrian started NRL’s first program in nanoelectronics; he became head of the nanoelectronics processing facility there in 1993. From 1998 to 2001, he worked in the microsystems technology office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. He subsequently moved to IBM, where he is the manager of device and systems innovation at the company’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California. His research interests are nanofabrication and the properties of nanometer-scale structures and devices, specifically nanoimprint technology and biologically inspired self-assembly.

Marrian spoke of his plans for the society. “Having moved to industry,” he said, “I have become acutely aware that AVS is in a unique position to bridge the needs and interests of academia, government, and industry. To strengthen these ties, I will focus on meeting the needs of our corporate members by, for example, linking our highly skilled and motivated student members with industry.” He added that he will “develop an AVS initiative that enables academia and government to benefit from insights into the research issues of relevance to industry today.”

In other AVS election news, Joe Greene (University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign) remains the society’s secretary and John Coburn (University of California, Berkeley) retains his position as treasurer. The new AVS directors are David Castner (University of Washington) and Rachel S. Goldman (University of Michigan). The society’s newly elected trustees are Theodore E. Madey (Rutgers University) and William Sproul (Advanced Energy Industries Inc, Fort Collins, Colorado).