Chris Van de Walle is a Distinguished Professor of Materials and the inaugural recipient of the Herbert Kroemer Endowed Chair in Materials Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. 

Prior to joining UCSB in 2004, he was a Principal Scientist at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).  He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1986, and was a postdoc at IBM Yorktown Heights (1986-1988) and a Senior Member of Research Staff at Philips Laboratories in Briarcliff Manor (1988-1991). 

Professor Van de Walle develops and employs first-principles computational techniques to model the structure and behavior of materials. He performs studies of interfaces, surfaces, defects and impurities, and has worked on wide-band-gap semiconductors, nitrides, oxides, hydrogen interactions with materials, and materials for quantum information science.

He has published over 400 research papers and holds 24 patents.  Van de Walle is a Member of the U. S. National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the APS, AVS, AAAS, MRS, and IEEE, as well as the recipient of a Humboldt Award for Senior US Scientist, the David Adler Award from the APS, the Medard W. Welch Award from the AVS, and the TMS John Bardeen Award.