Ramamoorthy Ramesh

Ramamoorthy Ramesh is the director of the SunShot Initiative and Solar Energy Technologies Program. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a Ph. D. in 1987. He then returned to Berkeley in 2004 and is currently the Plato Malozemoff Chair Professor in Materials Science and Physics. Previously, he was a distinguished university professor at the University of Maryland College Park.

Ramesh initiated research in several key areas of oxide electronics, including ferroelectric nonvolatile memories, while working at Bellcore from 1989–1995. His landmark contributions in ferroelectrics came through the recognition that conducting oxide electrodes are the solution to the problem of polarization fatigue, which for 30 years, remained an enigma and unsolved problem. At Berkeley, he continues to pursue key scientific and technological problems in complex multifunctional oxide thin films, nanostructures, and heterostructures. His current research interests include thermoelectric and photovoltaic energy conversion in complex oxide heterostructures.

Ramesh has published extensively on the synthesis and materials physics of complex oxide materials. He has received the Humboldt Senior Scientist Prize and Fellowship to the American Physical Society. In 2005, he was elected a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science as well as the David Adler Lectureship of the American Physical Society. In 2007, he was awarded the Materials Research Society David Turnbull Lectureship Award, and in 2009, he was elected Fellow of MRS and is the recipient of the 2010 APS McGroddy New Materials Prize.