In his 30-year-plus career as a scientist, technologist and entrepreneur, Dr Kanti Jain has achieved many milestones, including developing fabrication technologies for microelectronics such as those used for computers and television monitors.
While working at IBM in the 1980s, he invented the technology of high-resolution excimer laser lithography, which led to production machines for semiconductor integrated circuit manufacturing. These circuits are used in almost all electronic devices today. In the 1990s he also developed large-area lithography, used today in the manufacturing of flat-panel displays and televisions.
President and founder of Anvik Corporation, a New York-based microelectronics manufacturing systems company, Jain holds 68 patents, including inventions of core lithography technologies for the production of integrated circuits and displays.
Jain, professor, department of electrical and computer engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, was recently elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He was recognized 'for contributions to the development of high-resolution, deep-ultraviolet excimer lithography for microelectronic fabrication,' the Academy said.
He was one of the 10 top South Asian engineering professionals working in North America and India elected to the Academy this year, which is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. The other nine on the list were:
Dr Sanjay Ghemawat, Google Fellow, Google Inc, Mountain View, California: For contributions to the science and engineering of large-scale distributed computer systems.
Dr Chaitan Khosla, chair and professor, department of chemical engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California: For engineering molecular assembly lines, developing metabolic engineering technologies, and advancing biopharmaceutical discovery.
Umesh K Mishra, professor, department of electrical and computer engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara: For contributions to development of gallium-nitride electronics and other high-speed, high-power semiconductor electronic devices.
Dr C Mohan, IBM Fellow, IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose, California: For contributions to locking and recovery algorithms for database systems.
Dr Doraiswami Ramkrishna, Harry Creighton Peffer Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana: For creation of new model concepts and solutions that improved the engineering of biological and particulate processes.
Dr Gurindar S Sohi, John P Morgridge Professor and E David Cronon Professor of Computer Sciences, departments of computer sciences and electrical and computer engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison: For contributions to the design of high-performance, superscalar computer architectures.
Dr S M Farouq Ali, president, Petroleum Engineering Research Laboratories Canada Ltd, Edmonton, Alberta: For pioneering techniques for enhanced oil and gas recovery.
Dr Ahsan Kareem, Robert M Moran Professor, department of civil engineering and geological sciences, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana: For contributions to analyses and designs to account for wind effects on tall buildings, long-span bridges, and other structures.
Foreign Associate: Dr Prakash C Kapur, professor emeritus, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur: For the elucidation, quantification, and synthesis of complex mineral-processing systems. 