Richard Stanley Williams (born 1951) is a

research scientist A scientist is a person who researches to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophical study of nature ...

in the field of

nanotechnology Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...

and a

Senior Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned or professional societies, the term refers ...

and the founding director of the Quantum Science Research Laboratory at

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...

. He has over 57 patents, with 40 more patents pending. At HP, he led a group that developed a working solid state version of

Leon Chua Leon Ong Chua (; ; born June 28, 1936) is a Filipino-American electrical engineer and computer scientist. He is a professor in the electrical engineering and computer sciences department at the University of California, Berkeley, which he joined i ...

memristor A memristor (; a portmanteau of ''memory resistor'') is a non-linear two-terminal electrical component relating electric charge and magnetic flux linkage. It was described and named in 1971 by Leon Chua, completing a theoretical quartet of ...

. Williams earned a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

chemical physics Chemical physics is a branch of physics that studies chemical processes from a physical point of view. It focuses on understanding the physical properties and behavior of chemical systems, using principles from both physics and chemistry. This ...

in 1974 from

Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...

and a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

physical chemistry Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistical mech ...

from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

in 1978. After graduating, he worked at

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...

before joining the faculty at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

, where he served as a professor from 1980 to 1995. He then joined

HP Labs HP Labs is the exploratory and advanced research group for HP Inc. HP Labs' headquarters is in Palo Alto, California and the group has research and development facilities in Bristol, UK. The development of programmable desktop calculators, ink ...

as director of its Information and Quantum Systems Lab.

Awards and honors

Foresight Institute Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology The Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology is an award given by the Foresight Institute for significant advances in nanotechnology. Two prizes are awarded annually, in the categories of experimental and theoretical work. There is also a separate challe ...

(2000) * Herman Bloch Medal for Industrial Research (2004) *

Julius Springer Julius Springer (10 May 1817 – 17 April 1877) was a German publisher who founded the academic publishing house Springer Science+Business Media (formerly known as Springer-Verlag). Springer-Verlag In 1842, Springer founded the retail bookshop Sp ...

Prize for Applied Physics (2000) *

Glenn T. Seaborg Medal The Glenn T. Seaborg Medal was first awarded in 1987 by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry to Nobel Prize–winning chemist Glenn T. Seaborg, a UCLA alumnus. The purpose of the award is to hono ...

, UCLA (2007)

References

External links

His Nov. 28, 2008, article on Memristors in IEEE Spectrum
Living people Rice University alumni Scientists at Bell Labs UC Berkeley College of Chemistry alumni 21st-century American physicists Hewlett-Packard people University of California, Los Angeles faculty 1951 births {{US-engineer-stub