Biography: Richard S. Muller

Richard Muller earned the degree of Mechanical Engineer at Stevens Institute of Technology in 1955. He then studied under Hughes and NSF Fellowships at the California Institute of Technology and was awarded an MS/EE in 1957 and a PhD (EE and Physics) in 1962. He was employed as a Member of the Technical Staff at Hughes Aircraft Company and taught at the University of Southern California before joining the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley where he concentrated his research on the physics of integrated-circuit devices. Together with Dr. T.I. Kamins of Hewlett-Packard Company, Dr Muller first published "Device Electronics for Integrated Circuits" in 1977. A 3rd edition of this book (which has been translated into five languages) was published in 2003. In the late 1970s, Muller began research in the area now known as MEMS and, together with Professor R.M. White, he founded the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center in 1986. He wrote the proposal to establish IEEE/ASME Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems (JMEMS) and is now the Editor-in-Chief of this journal. A member of the US National Academy of Engineering and an IEEE Life Fellow, Muller received a career MEMS Award at TRANSDUCERS '97 as well as the IEEE Brunetti Award (1998 with R.T. Howe), NATO and Fulbright Professorships, and a von Humboldt Research Award at TU Berlin in 1994. Other Awards include the Berkeley Citation and the Renaissance Award from Stevens Institute of Technology, where he served as Trustee 1996-2005. He has been a member of the National Materials Advisory Board and served on several National Research Council study panels as well as chairing a 1997 panel for which he acted as editor of a widely distributed report on the promises and challenges of MEMS. His present research focus is on optical MEMS.