Professor Sir Christopher Maxwell Snowden FRS FREng FIET FIEEE FCGI (born 5 March 1956 in Kingston upon Hull) is the Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of the University of Surrey in Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom.
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He studied Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Leeds, gaining a BSc in 1977, an MSc and a PhD in 1982. His PhD involved microwave oscillators for radar applications and semiconductor device modeling. He conducted his PhD research at Racal-MESL Ltd near Edinburgh in Scotland as well as at the University of Leeds.[1]
He was an Applications Engineer for Mullard Applications Laboratory from 1977-8. He lectured at the Dept of Electronics in the University of York from 1982-3. From 1983-2005 he was a member of staff at the University of Leeds, his former alma mater, working in the Dept of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, becoming Professor of Microwave Engineering in 1992 until 2005. He was Head of the school from 1995-8 and for a while was warden of Bodington Hall. Whilst at Leeds he was a founder of the Institute of Microwave and Photonics. He supervised 50 successful PhD students. He has also worked at M/A-COM in the US from 1989-91 as Senior Staff Scientist in the Corporate Research and Development Centre, based just outside Boston.
In 1998 he was appointed to the Board of Filtronic plc as Executive Director of Technology, where he initiated the Global Technology Group. He was subsequently appointed Joint Chief Executive Officer of Filtronic plc in 1999. As the company grew in 2001 he became Chief Executive Officer of Filtronic ICS, responsible for compound semiconductor business and fabrication facilities in the UK and US (including the world’s largest 150mm gallium arsenide wafer facility at that time), defense businesses in the UK and US, module assembly and point-point microwave transceiver businesses.[2]
In 2005 he was appointed Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of the University of Surrey.
In his research career he has published over 330 technical papers, patents and has written 8 books including * Introduction to Semiconductor Device Modelling. World Scientific Pub Co Inc. 1998. ISBN 9789971501426. (World Scientific in English and Japanese). He has acted as editor for 4 journals and 3 special issues as well as the EEE Wiley book series. He has given over 70 keynote invited and plenary lectures. He has chaired a number of major international conferences including the 2006 European Microwave Conference.[3]
He has held a number of consultancy positions including positions with General Electric (US), M/A-Com inc (US), Filtronic Comtek, Lucas-Variety (UK), Filtronic plc and Diamond Microwave Devices Ltd (UK). He was also a Visiting Professor at Durham until 2005 and a Visiting Scientist at the Delft University of Technology from 1996-98.
On 1 July 2005, Sir Christopher became the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Surrey, succeeding Professor Patrick J Dowling. As Vice-Chancellor he is responsible for leading the University's new strategy.
The University is now structured in to four Faculties in Engineering and Physical Sciences, Arts and Human Sciences, Health and Medical Sciences and Management and Law. Its Guilford campus in rural Surrey in the UK has over 15,000 students and the Surrey International Institute at Dalian in China (which is venture with DUFE) has over 1500 students studying for Surrey degrees. Since 2005 the University has forged partnerships and links with California Institute of Technology (where Professor Snowden was a Visiting Member of Staff in 1987), North Carolina State University, São Paulo, UCLA, Beijing, Nanjing and Soeul National University. The entrance standards at the university have risen 35% since 2005 and applications have risen over 100% over the last five years. Surrey was awarded the 2006 THES Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Innovation and Technology sponsored by Toshiba. It has invested nearly £36 million in a new world-class sports park on its Guildford campus which opened in April 2010. The University recently sold its satellite technology business SSTL for close to £50m cash whilst retaining continuing relationship with the University’s Space Research Centre, which was a record for a cash spin-out from a UK university.[4] In November 2011, the University was awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education. [5]
Sir Christopher’s research interests are in the areas of microwave, millimetre-wave and optoelectronic devices and circuits. He pioneered the application of numerical physical device models to comprehensively describe electron transport in microwave transistor operation and in particular investigating device-circuit interaction properties. This allowed transistor designs to be significantly improved and optimized. This work was specifically recognised in his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society and as a Fellow of the IEEE. His early work was focused on two-dimensional numerical modelling and in particular on hot-electron effects in short-gate length field effect transistors (FETs), where he was able to show that the high energy electrons in transistor substrates contributed significantly to the conduction current. He also contributed to the development of new non-linear laser diode models which found particular application in emerging high data rate communication systems.
During the mid-1980’s, along with colleagues in Lille and Duisburg universities, he explored the potential for a new class of physical model which became known as the quasi-two-dimensional (Q2D) approach. This was shown to be extremely effective at modelling field-effect transistors such as the popular metal semiconductor FET (MESFET), and Snowden’s models were shown to have the ability to accurately predict the DC and RF performance based on the physical geometry and material properties available from fabrication data. Moreover, the Q2D model is able to be solved over 1000 times faster than full two-dimensional models, making it suitable for computer aided design applications. These models were widely used around the world in industry and academia. Snowden went on to apply this technique to high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs), between 1995 and 2005, and it was shown to be an effective method for modelling and designing AlGaAs/GaAs HEMTs and the important pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistors (pHEMTs) based on InGaAs/GaAs systems. New designs of power pHEMT (some with capabilities of over 100 W at 2 GHz) were developed and fabricated using this knowledge. pHEMTs are widely used in communication applications and many billions of circuits based on pHEMT integrated circuits have been used in products such as mobile phones, radar and satellite receivers. More recently, since 2008 he has applied new Q2D models to laterally diffused MOS power transistors (LDMOS) for high power amplifiers in communications systems, achieving similar high levels of accurate prediction and speed advantage.
During the period 1990 to 1997 Sir Christopher developed a new electrothermal physics-based equivalent circuit model for heterojunction bipolar transistors which was suited to power amplifier applications (widely used in cellular handsets). He was awarded the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society Microwave Prize in 1999 [6] for this work described in his 1997 paper “Large-signal Microwave Characterization of AlGaAs/GaAs HBT’s Based on a Physics Based Electrothermal Model’ (IEEE TMTT, MTT-45, pp. 58-71, 1997)[7]. He went on to develop further models based on incorporating the interaction between thermal effects and electronic behaviour, which proved to be important in accurately modelling power transistor and in power amplifier designs. Subsequently he developed this into fully integrated models incorporating electromagnetic effects into the physical models and demonstrating the significance of this type of global model for millimetre-wave circuits.
Professor Snowden was President of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) (2009–10).[8] He is Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Engineering where he Chairs the Academy’s Engineering Policy Committee.[9] He is a member of the Council of the Royal Society [10] and was appointed to by the Prime Minister to his advisory Council for Science and Technology (CST) in 2011. He is also a member of the UK Government's Foresight Advisory Board. [11]
He is a member of the governing bodies of the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)[12] and the Technology Strategy Board (TSB). He is the UK member of the governing body of the EU Joint Research Centre (JRC) since 2011.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), the IEEE and the City and Guilds of London Institute.[13]
He has been a member of Foresight Committee panels on Communications and Media, and Exploitation of the Electromagnetic Spectrum. He was a member of the UK’s National Advisory Committee on Electronic Materials 2002-7. He was a member of the supervisory board of the Electromagnetic Remote Sensing Defense Technology Centre form 2002-5. He has appeared before the UK’s House of Commons Select Committee on several occasions.
He was Chairman of the Daphne Jackson Trust from 2005 to 2009 and is now a patron of the Trust.[14] He is a patron Surrey Youth Focus and Transform Housing & Support. He was a Governor of the Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation UK until 2011.
He has been a non-executive director of companies such as Intense Ltd, CENAMPS Ltd., SSTL. He was a Board member of the European Microwave Association from 2003-7, where he was also Vice-Chair for a period. He was Chair of HERO Ltd from 2006-9 and a Member of the governing board of the Engineering Technology Board from 2007-9. He is currently Vice-President (England and Northern Ireland) and a board member of Universities UK (UUK) and Chaired their Employability, Business and Industry policy committee (2009 to 2011). He was a member of the South East England Science, Engineering and Technology Advisory Council (SESETAC) until 2011. [15] and is a member of the Council of Industry and Higher Education (CIHE).[16] He is a board member of the ERA Foundation.
He was awarded the IEEE Microwave Prize in 1999 for his world-leading research paper on Microwave power transistors for communicating applications and the IEEE Distinguished Educator Award in 2009 by the Microwave Theory and Techniques Society.[17]
The Royal Academy of Engineering awarded him their Silver Medal for ‘Outstanding personal contributions to the UK microwave semiconductor industry’ in 2004.[18]
Between 1998 and 2005 he was a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Electron Devices Society.
In 2003 he was invited by HRH The Queen to Buckingham Palace for the Pioneer Reception recognizing his contributions to communication technology.
Professor Snowden was knighted in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to engineering and higher education.[19][20]
He married Irena Lewandowska in 1993. They have two sons (born March 1994 and August 1996).
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