Prof. Umesh K. Mishra

(BT/EE/1979)

Umesh K. Mishra is the Richard A. Auhll Dean of the College of Engineering, and the Donald W. Whittier Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC Santa Barbara. He received his B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, India, his M.S from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA., and his Ph.D. in 1984 from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.

Profile

He has supervised 80 Ph.D theses to completion with 15 of them being women and 69 of them in the field of Gallium Nitride (GaN) materials and devices.

He co-founded the first start-up in the world to commercialize RF GaN transistors and LEDs in 1996 (Nitres) which was acquired by CREE (now Wolfspeed) in 2000. Umesh co-founded Transphorm in 2007 (selected by the World Economic Forum as a 2013 Technology Pioneer) to commercialize GaN transistors for power conversion which was acquired by Renesas in 2024.

He is a Fellow of the IEEE, an International Fellow of the Japanese Society of Applied Physics, a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, a Member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Foreign Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering and a Distinguished Alumnus of IIT Kanpur. He has received several awards for developing GaN electronics including the IEEE Jun-Ichi Nishizawa Medal in 2022.

Achievements and Honors

• IEEE Jun-Ichi Nishizawa Medal in 2022.
• Donald W. Whittier Chair in Electrical Engineering, UCSB, 2013.
• Heinrich Welker Award for "The Development of GaN High Power Electronics from Conception, Education to Commercialization," International Symposium on Compound Semiconductors, 2012.
• Member, National Academy of Engineering, USA, 2009.
• Quantum Device Award, ISCS, 2007.
• IEEE David Sarnoff Award, 2007.
• Distinguished Alumnus Award, IIT Kanpur, 2006.
• Young Scientist of the Year Award, International GaAs Symposium, 1992.
• NSF, Presidential Young Investigator Award, 1989.