While on campus prior to the spring 2012 commencement (at which he delivered the keynote address) Dr. Craig Barrett, retired chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Intel Corporation, toured several labs and discussed current projects with Mines researchers.
He met with professors:
- Carolyn Koh and Amadeu Sum regarding gas hydrates in energy applications;
- John Curtis regarding shale gas and shale oil;
- Jeff Squier regarding femtosecond laser pulses for novel material processing and new biomedical applications;
- John McCray and Jorg Drewes regarding water research;
- Corrine Packard, Ryan O'Hayre and Brian Gorman regarding renewable energy materials research and education;
- Patrick Taylor and Corby Anderson regarding critical materials recovery and recycling;
- John Speer and Kip Findley regarding physical metallurgy to support the manufacturing renaissance.
At one stop during the tour, O'Hayre asked Barrett to autograph a textbook he had used to help study for his PhD qualifying exams, "The Principles of Engineering Materials." Barrett co-authored the book while he was a professor at Stanford prior to his career with Intel. Mines Professor David Matlock was a graduate student at Stanford at that time and helped prepare many of the photographs and figure reproductions for the text.
