Nerissa Draeger

Nerissa Draeger is part of the Strategy & Innovation team within the Office of the CTO at Lam Research. As Director of University Engagements, she oversees Lam’s academic partnerships and strategic research collaborations. The CTO group is bringing together Lam’s technology vision, pursuing disruptive technologies to enable improvements in performance and productivity, and accelerating opportunity for customers. Nerissa has led various technical programs since joining Novellus Systems, now part of Lam Research, in 2000. Her career has encompassed discovery and assessment of emerging semiconductor materials and processes, direction of pathfinding research to identify the most viable technologies, and new product development.  Her background is in thin film deposition and surface science and she earned her Ph.D. and B.S.E. degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urba­na-Champaign and the University of Michigan, respectively. She has authored 25 patents and numerous technical publications on semiconductor materials and processes.