Deirdre Hanford, Chief Executive Officer & Trustee
Natcast
Deirdre Hanford was appointed Chief Executive Officer and Trustee of Natcast in January 2024. In this role, Hanford leads Natcast as a purpose-built, non-profit entity designated to operate the National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC) by the Department of Commerce. Established by the CHIPS and Science Act of the U.S. government, the NSTC is a public-private consortium dedicated to semiconductor R&D in the United States. The NSTC convenes industry, academia, and government from across the semiconductor ecosystem to address the most challenging barriers to continued technological progress in the domestic semiconductor industry, including the need for a skilled workforce.
Prior to Natcast, Hanford served as an executive at Synopsys. Over the span of thirty-six years, Hanford’s roles included being Chief Security Officer, Co-General Manager of the Synopsys Design Group, and leader of a variety of customer engagement, applications engineering, sales and marketing groups.
Well known within the semiconductor ecosystem, Hanford has served on many industry advisory boards, including being a leader in the Department of Commerce Industrial Advisory Committee formed through the CHIPS Act.
In July 2024, Hanford was selected to receive the 2025 IEEE Frederik Philips Award “for visionary leadership in electronic design automation for secure and energy-efficient microelectronics.” Hanford was additionally awarded the 2024 Brown Engineering Alumni Medal (BEAM) within the Brown University School of Engineering. She has also been named to WomenTech’s 2022 list of Women in Tech Leaders to Watch, VLSIresearch’s 2017 list of All Stars of the Semiconductor Industry, and National Diversity Council’s 2014 list of Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Technology. In 2001, Hanford was a recipient of the YWCA Tribute to Women and Industry (TWIN) Award and the Marie R. Pistilli Women in EDA Achievement Award.
Hanford earned a B.S. Engineering (electrical engineering) from Brown University and an M.S.E.E. from University of California, Berkeley.