Professor Rao Tummala held the Joseph M. Pettit Chair in Electronics Packaging in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a joint faculty appointment in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech from 1993-2019. He was also the Founding Director of an NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC) called the http://www.prc.gatech.edu">Microsystems Packaging Research Center (PRC) pioneering the Second Law of Electronics (the first being Moore's Law) by his System-On-Package (SOP) vision. The PRC is currently the largest and most comprehensive microsystems packaging research, education and industry collaboration Center involving 200 students and 15 faculty from ECE, ME, ChE and MSE departments, and 40 global companies from the U.S., Europe and Asia. He was also a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar from 1993-2019.

Prior to joining Georgia Tech, Prof. Tummala was a Fellow at IBM Corporation where he invented a number of major technologies for IBM's products for displaying, printing, magnetic storage, and packaging. He was the lead materials scientist pioneering the industry's first flat panel display in the 1970s and was the technical leader and program manager for the industry's first R&D in multi-chip-module (MCM) leading to the first 61-layer, low-temperature, co-fired ceramic (LTCC) in 1980s. He was the Director of IBM's Advanced Packaging Research laboratory responsible for IBM's Strategy and Programs in the U.S., Europe and Japan before accepting a research center directorship at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1993.

Prof. Tummala received many academic, industry and professional society awards including "Industry Week's" one of the 50 stars in the U.S. for improving U.S. competitiveness, the David Sarnoff Award, the Third Millennium Award from IEEE, Daniel Hughes and John Wagnon's Award from IMAPS, Materials Engineering Achievement Award from ASM-International, the John Jeppson Award from American Ceramic Society, the Total Excellence Award in Electronics Manufacturing (TEEM) Award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, and the European Materials Award from DVM. He also received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Illinois and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. Most recently, he received the highest faculty award, the Distinguished Professor Award from Georgia Tech.

Prof. Tummala has published 800http://www.raotummala.com/publications.htm"> technical papers, holds 110 U.S. patents and inventions, and authored the first modern reference book for microsystems packaging in 1988, and the first undergraduate textbook in 2001. He has written a total of seven text and reference books. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, IMAPS, and the American Ceramic Society; a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and was the President of the IEEE-CPMT Society and IMAPS Society. He is a consultant to many of the Fortune 500 electronics companies in the U.S., Europe and Asia.