Dr. Barez is a leader, aggressive participant to technology, an innovator, an entrepreneur, a high-tech company founder, a distinguished educator, and a mentor to young aspiring engineers. Following earning a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California in Berkeley at the age of 25, he started his career in Silicon Valley.

Advancement in storage device technology has enabled ever more functional and affordable storage devices, with dramatic impact on virtually every aspect of life in modern society. The key to continual improvements in storage device density has been the invention and development of advanced technologies in high density rotating disk file storage systems. Dr. Barez, designed, developed and manufactured a variety of products for data storage disk drive industry, in particular, design of the unique servo clock heads to increase disk file storage. Virtually all documents and photos stored in the ‘clouds’ utilizes technologies developed by Dr. Barez.

Dr. Barez is the current Chair of Aviation and Technology, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and past Chair of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at San Jose State University. He is a magnet to attract and inspire engineering students to his programs, has a variety of research interests such as Electronics Packaging, Semiconductors, Smart Home and Energy Efficiency, Self-driving and Autonomous Vehicles. He introduced over 35 new courses in support of workforce development in Silicon Valley; developed educational and research laboratories, supervised graduate students, and published journal and conference papers, book chapters and manuscripts.

Dr. Barez is a member of several professional and honorary societies. A co-founder and past president of SVEC, co-founder and President of SIP, and Project Enable. President of ASME Santa Clara Valley, Life Member, Fellow and recipient of the ASME’s prestigious ‘Dedicated Service’ Award, Life Member of the Chinese Institute of Engineers (CIE), and a co-Trustee of the Epsilon Pi Tau Honorary Society.

Throughout his career spanning four decades, Ajit Manocha has been a pioneer, business leader, and champion of industry collaboration as a critical means of advancing technology for societal and economic prosperity. He has been adept at forming strong partnerships with customers, suppliers, governments and communities for these efforts.

Ajit began his career as a research scientist at AT&T Bell Laboratories, where he was granted over a dozen patents related to semiconductor manufacturing processes that served as the foundation for modern microelectronics manufacturing. He went on to hold senior worldwide operations leadership roles at Philips Semiconductors (NXP) and Spansion before serving as President and CEO at GLOBALFOUNDRIES and SEMI. He has served on the boards of SEMI, SIA and GSA. Ajit was an advisor to President Obama on the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership Steering committee and on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). In 2012, during his tenure at GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Ajit was awarded the prestigious “EHS Achievement Award — Inspired by Akira Inoue” for his commitment and action on Environmental Health and Safety standards. Additionally, he has excelled in people development by teaching courses such as “Leadership by Example” and “Classroom to Cleanroom to Boardroom.”

Currently, as President and CEO of SEMI, Ajit has initiated a major transformation to expand SEMI’s scope and influence to represent the broader electronics manufacturing supply chain. He has positioned SEMI to tackle major challenges facing the industry and support the community by building up Workforce Development and Diversity & Inclusion programs to address the growing talent shortage and lack of gender parity across the industry.

In December 2019, Ajit was named an “All Star of the Semiconductor Industry” by VLSI Research for his visionary leadership in restructuring SEMI from its traditional position to represent the expanded electronics supply chain.