The Robert T. Chien Distinguished Lecturer Series

The Robert T. Chien Distinguished Lecturer Series

A Distinguished Legacy

The Robert T. Chien Distinguished Lecturer Series has been bringing eminent researchers from all over the world to speak at CSL since 1979. It is just one of the lasting legacies of the former CSL director who started the lecture series.

Robert T. Chien was CSL director from 1973 to 1983, a time when the laboratory emerged as a leader in semiconductor materials and devices. During that period, CSL became one of the first university laboratories to begin research in MBE and MOCVD -- valuable new processes for growing semiconductor crystals.

Chien also showed show long-range vision in his research. With Franco Preparata and Gernot Metze, he published the seminal paper on system-level diagnosis -- the rules by which one machine can diagnose another. Their model, known as the PMC Model, had a major influence on the development of fault-tolerant computing.

After Chien’s death in 1983, the CSL Distinguished Lecturer Series was renamed the Robert T. Chien Distinguished Lecturer Series in his honor.