Clarkson University Distinguished University Professor Suryadevara V. Babu has been named professor emeritus for 41 years of exemplary service to the University. Formal recognition will take place at commencement on May 14.
The longtime director of Clarkson’s Center for Advanced Materials Processing, Babu is a major contributor internationally in the field of chemical-mechanical planarization (CMP), an area of critical importance to semiconductor device manufacturing, and led the research efforts in CMP at Clarkson for more than 20 years.
Babu joined Clarkson in 1981 as an associate professor of chemical engineering and became a professor in 1986. He was named director of the Center for Advanced Materials Processing in 1999 and served in that position until 2016. He also served as vice provost for research from 2001 to 2004. He was honored by the board of trustees with the title of distinguished university professor in 2004.
Some of Babu’s research interests include the CMP of metal and dielectric films and post-CMP cleaning of polished surfaces. He and his students also developed and characterized diamond-like carbon films for various applications.
Babu’s research, which has received more than $7 million in external funding, has been supported over the years by IBM, Intel/SRC, Ebara, Applied Materials, Kodak, SK Hynix, Nippon Shokubai, GlobalFoundries, SEMATECH, Infotonics Technology Center, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Defense, Climax Engineered Materials, Ferro Electronics, NYSERDA, St. Gobain, PPG Industries, and Dow, among others. He was also a consultant with several companies in the area of CMP and thin films.
In addition, as the director of the Center for Advanced Materials Processing, Babu was responsible for obtaining and managing over $17 million from NYSTAR and from CAMP corporate members. In addition, approximately $1 million in royalties were received from Ferro Corporation.
Babu is the co-author of 31 patents and more than 290 professional publications, including more than 210 peer-reviewed publications.
An esteemed scientist and engineer, Babu has received numerous awards, including the Clarkson Lifetime Achievement Award for Research and Scholarship, the Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Field of Planarization, two IBM faculty development awards, and the Intel Outstanding Researcher Award. In addition, the World Education Congress honored him with an Education Leadership Award for his outstanding leadership and contributions to the field of education. He also addressed the 2018 M.S. and Ph.D. graduates of Clarkson in a speech delivered at their commencement.
Babu has supervised 49 Ph.D. students and 40 master of science students so far, many of whom occupy leadership positions in the semiconductor and other industries.
He has delivered plenary and keynote lectures at numerous international and national conferences and organized 20 internationally recognized annual symposia on CMP in Lake Placid, as well as many CAMP conferences and symposia.
Babu is a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the Electrochemical Society, and the Materials Research Society.
He earned his Ph.D. in physics from SUNY Stony Brook and completed graduate study in chemical engineering at Johns Hopkins University. He received his master of technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and his bachelor of technology from Andhra University, both in chemical engineering.
https://www.clarkson.edu/news/suryadevara-babu-named-professor-emeritus-clarkson-university