Sadasivan (Sadas) Shankar, Chief Scientist
Sadas Shankar is the first Margaret and Will Hearst Visiting Lecturer at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). In fall 2013, as the first Distinguished Scientist in Residence at the Institute of Applied Computational Sciences in Harvard, he co-instructed a graduate-level class on Computational Materials Design, on fundamental atomic and quantum techniques and practical applications for new materials by design. He has also co-developed and co-instructed classes on Extreme Computing for Real Applications and Mitigating Toxicity by Materials Design. He is involved in research in the areas of materials, chemistry, multi-scale and non-equilibrium methods, and large-scale computational methods.
Prior to joining Harvard, Shankar spent over 20 years at Intel and led several critical technology decisions in chemistry, materials, processing, packaging, manufacturing, and design rules for over nine generations of Moore’s law in semiconductor technology. Among his team’s successes were the first advanced process control application in Intel manufacturing, the introduction of flip-chip packaging and 100% lead-elimination in microprocessors.
Shankar has been also involved in several collaborative national and international efforts with Semiconductor Research Corporation, SEMATECH, and Semiconductor Industry Association in laying out roadmaps for Process Equipment, Emerging Research on Materials and initiating research efforts on Nanomaterials. In addition, he has provided inputs to National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Department of Energy, Chemical Industry R&D Roadmap, Integrated Computational Materials and Engineering, President’s Materials Genome Initiative, and NASA Vision 2040 for Computational Design of Materials for highlighting needs in materials research.
Shankar earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science from University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. He is a co-inventor in over twenty patent filings covering areas in new chemical reactor designs, semiconductor processes, bulk and nano materials, device structures, and algorithms. He is also a co-author in over hundred publications and presentations in measurements, multi-scale and multi-physics methods spanning from quantum scale to macroscopic scales, in the areas of chemical synthesis, plasma chemistry and processing, non-equilibrium electronic, ionic, and atomic transport, energy efficiency of information processing, and machine learning methods for bridging across scales.
Ramana Nanda, Adviser
Ramana Nanda is the Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration and co-head of the Private Capital Project at Harvard Business School. His research examines financing frictions in venture capital, corporate R&D and small business finance. This work has shed light on how financial intermediaries, corporations and policy makers can improve the odds of selecting and commercializing the most promising ideas and technologies.
Nanda is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and Faculty affiliate of Harvard's Center for the Environment. He received his Ph.D. from MIT's Sloan School of Management and has a BA and MA in Economics from Trinity College, Cambridge, U.K. He is a recipient of the 2015 Kauffman Prize Medal, that is awarded annually to one scholar under age 40 whose research has made a significant contribution to the literature in entrepreneurship.
Prior to starting his Ph.D., Nanda was based in the London and New York offices of Oliver, Wyman & Company, where he worked primarily with clients in global capital markets as well as in small-business banking. He continues to advise startup ventures on their financing strategies and also works with philanthropic investors who use market-based solutions to address poverty and promote entrepreneurship in developing countries.