John M. Poate
Emeritus Senior Vice-President of Research

John M. Poate, PhD, Australian National University, 1967, is Emeritus senior vice-president of research at the Colorado School of Mines and editor-in-chief of Applied Physics Reviews. He previously served as a Harwell Fellow of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, head of the Silicon Processing and Interface Physics Research Departments at Bell Laboratories, dean of the New Jersey Institute of Technology and chief technology officer of Axcelis Technologies.

Poate’s research and management interests reflect his 50-year career in the physical and materials sciences. He has published extensively in several areas of nuclear and solid state physics, materials science and engineering with over 300 published papers, editor of four books and seven conference proceedings. He has twelve patents. In the policy arena his interests involve renewable energy, sustainability and the implications of climate change.

Poate is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the Materials Research Society and the National Academy of Inventors. He served as president of the MRS and chair of the APS Division of Materials Physics. He has served on advisory councils for NATO, U.S. and overseas universities, the National Science Foundation, National Research Council and Department of Energy and the board of the DOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He currently serves as chair of the director’s review committee for physical and life sciences at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the board of the Energy Change Institute of the Australian National University, the South Dakota School of Mines advisory board and the CSU Energy Institute External advisory board.

His awards include the John Bardeen Award of The Metallurgical Society and an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines.