Swanlund Endowed Chair: Karl Hess

Karl Hess is Swanlund Chair and Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering.  He is the founder of the area of computational electronics and has contributed in the areas of solid-state electronics; the physics and chemistry of molecular and electronic nanostructures; and theory and simulation of solid-state electronic devices.  Professor Hess helped to create a Center for Computational Electronics as the Beckman Institute.  Other work contributed to the theory of electronic transport and to the discovery of a giant isotope effect in the aging of integrated circuits in silicon technology.  He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and American Academy of Arts and Sciences; a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, American Physical Society, and American Association for the Advancement of Science.  Professor Hess has received the J.J. Ebers Award, Sarnoff Technical Field Award, Heinrich Welker Memorial Award, and an honorary Doctor of Science degree, ETH, Zurich, Switzerland.