Dr. Omkaram (Om) Nalamasu is senior vice president and chief technology officer (CTO) of Applied Materials, Inc. He brings extensive experience and passion to the role of CTO, where he leads the development of disruptive products to address new markets and businesses in partnership with the broader technology ecosystem. He has built a world-class team to support Applied’s leadership in materials engineering. He also serves as president of Applied Ventures, LLC, the venture capital fund of Applied Materials, where he oversees strategic investments in early- and growth-stage companies.

A world-renowned expert in materials science and one of our industry’s most respected forward-thinkers, Dr. Nalamasu has championed a renewed focus on Applied’s global innovation culture through various internal development programs and open innovation methods. He has solidified strategic relationships with universities, government organizations and research institutes around the world.

Dr. Nalamasu joined Applied in 2006 after serving as an NYSTAR Distinguished Professor of materials science and engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he also served as vice president of research. He has held key research and development leadership positions at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Bell Laboratories/Lucent Technologies, and Agere Systems, Inc., and was director of Bell Laboratories' Nanofabrication Research Laboratory, MEMS and Waveguides Research, and Condensed Matter Physics organizations.

His research interests include nanomanufacturing, nanopatterning, electronic and photonic materials, and lithography, with special emphasis on applying patterning and materials expertise for device fabrication for electronics, photonics and energy applications.

Dr. Nalamasu has made seminal contributions to the fields of optical lithography and polymeric materials science and technology. He has received numerous awards, authored more than 180 papers, review articles and books, and holds more than 120 worldwide issued patents.

In 2017, Dr. Nalamasu was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering for technical innovation spanning materials development, atomically controlled thin-film fabrication, and commercialization in microelectronics and energy generation and storage. He is a member of the board of directors of The Tech Museum in Silicon Valley and serves on several national and international advisory boards. He received his Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.