MIT Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Professor Clifton Fonstad, Jr. Appointed First Holder of Vitesse Chair

June 26, 2000

Professor Clifton Fonstad, Jr. has been appointed as the first holder of the Vitesse Professorship of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. This Chair was established by Lou Tomasetta and Jim Mikkelson, the co-founders of Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation. Both of the donors hold undergraduate and advanced degrees from EECS. That Clif Fonstad is the first holder of this chair is singularly appropriate. Clif is an outstanding researcher and educator who has made many contributions to the industry in which Vitesse is a leader. Furthermore, both Lou and Jim benefited from working with Clif while they were students here.

Clif is a world recognized authority on compound semiconductor heterostructures devices, and on large-scale monolithic optoelectronic integration. Clif and his students have made major contributions to the structures, materials combinations, and integration technologies used with semiconductor laser diodes. In addition, his research group has done pioneering work with, and introduced new device concepts for heterojunction bipolar transistors. Clif and his students have produced resonant tunneling diodes incorporating structural innovations yielding performance that is still unsurpassed. In the last ten years, Clif's research has increasingly concentrated on techniques for monolithically integrating optoelectronic devices on commercially processed, very-large-scale integrated circuits.

Clif has published over 145 papers in refereed technical journals, and has presented numerous invited lectures worldwide. He has supervised over 30 Ph.D. students and many more masters and undergraduate theses students. He also has a long and distinguished record of teaching undergraduate subjects, regularly lecturing the Department's introductory header course on semiconductor materials, devices, and circuits.

We are delighted to have this wonderful opportunity to recognize Clif's outstanding academic career and especially his many contributions to EECS. Please join us in extending warmest congratulations to Clif.