Su is the first MIT alum­na to make a gift for a buil­ding that will bear her own name.

MIT Resour­ce Deve­lo­p­ment — April 7, 2022

Buil­ding 12, the home of MIT.nano, will soon be named in honor of Lisa T. Su ’90, SM ’91, PhD ’94, chief exe­cu­ti­ve offi­cer and chair of the Board of Direc­tors of AMD. Su is the first MIT alum­na to make a gift for a buil­ding that will bear her own name. 

Lisa Su led AMD to its stron­gest per­for­mance in the company’s more than 50-year histo­ry in 2021, brin­ging to mar­ket seve­ral lea­ding-edge tech­no­lo­gies. She pre­vious­ly ser­ved in mul­ti­ple roles at Frees­ca­le Semi­con­duc­tor Inc., IBM, and Texas Instruments.

Su ear­ned bachelor’s, master’s, and doc­to­ral degrees from MIT in elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring. She has recei­ved many honors inclu­ding two named for MIT alum­ni who were pio­neers in her indus­try: the Glo­bal Semi­con­duc­tor Association’s Dr. Mor­ris Chang Exem­pla­ry Lea­der­ship Award and the Robert N. Noy­ce Medal, the hig­hest honor award­ed by the Insti­tu­te of Elec­tri­cal and Elec­tro­nics Engi­neers. Su was the first woman ever to recei­ve the Noy­ce medal.

“Nano­sci­ence and nano­tech­no­lo­gy are cen­tral to the work of MIT, and to the work of inven­ting the future,” says L. Rafa­el Reif, MIT’s pre­si­dent. “Well-known, admi­red, and respec­ted as a visio­na­ry lea­der for her trans­for­ma­ti­on of AMD, Lisa Su is enab­ling MIT.nano to expand the boun­da­ries of rese­arch and inno­va­ti­on at the nan­os­ca­le. Rese­ar­chers dedi­ca­ted to inven­ting new, sci­ence-based solu­ti­ons for the most urgent chal­lenges are drawn to the vibrant, col­la­bo­ra­ti­ve com­mu­ni­ty of MIT.nano that the Lisa T. Su Buil­ding now holds.”

Loca­ted at the cen­ter of cam­pus adja­cent to the Gre­at Dome, the Lisa T. Su Buil­ding was con­s­truc­ted to ser­ve as the campus’s open-access faci­li­ty for nan­os­ca­le sci­ence and engi­nee­ring. Ope­ned in 2018, the buil­ding is nota­ble for expan­si­ve glass faca­des that allow unob­s­truc­ted views into the labo­ra­to­ries, desi­gned to visual­ly con­nect rese­ar­chers within the buil­ding and with the world out­side. The design of the buil­ding has enli­vened its shared expe­ri­men­tal faci­li­ties, dra­wing the par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on of rese­ar­chers from more than three dozen depart­ments, labs, and cen­ters, as well as exter­nal users from indus­try, aca­de­mia, and other organizations.

Vla­di­mir Bulo­vić, the Fari­borz Maseeh (1990) Pro­fes­sor of Emer­ging Tech­no­lo­gy and foun­ding direc­tor of MIT.nano, says that Su’s lega­cy at MIT began as soon as she gra­dua­ted. “For many years after her gra­dua­ti­on, Dr. Su’s tech­ni­cal recipes deve­lo­ped during her PhD stu­dies were fol­lo­wed by new stu­dent rese­ar­chers uti­li­zing MIT’s shared tool sets for nano­fa­bri­ca­ti­on,” he says. “It is won­derful that Lisa Su’s name will now adorn the home of today’s open-access labo­ra­to­ries and inspi­re the gene­ra­ti­ons of stu­dents who enter the buil­ding to fol­low in her footsteps.”

Su’s remar­kab­le care­er con­ti­nues MIT’s lega­cy of edu­ca­ting lea­ders in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. Buil­ding 32 is named for Ray Sta­ta ’57, SM ’58, co-foun­der of Ana­log Devices, and his wife, Maria; his­to­ric Buil­ding E52, head­quar­ters of the Depart­ment of Eco­no­mics, was named in 2015 in honor of Mor­ris Chang ’52, SM ’53, ME ’55, foun­ding chair­man of the Tai­wan Semi­con­duc­tor Manu­fac­tu­ring Com­pa­ny, and his wife, Sophie; and Buil­ding 54 was named in honor of Cecil Green ’24, SM ’24, the co-foun­der of Texas Instru­ments, and his wife, Ida. Addi­tio­nal MIT alum­ni with pivo­tal roles in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try include Robert Noy­ce PhD ’53, co-foun­der of Intel and the first per­son to make a mono­li­thic inte­gra­ted micro­chip, and Irwin Jacobs SM ’57, ScD ’59, co-foun­der of the glo­bal tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons firm Qualcomm.

“MIT has play­ed an incre­di­bly important role in my life,” says Su. “I am hono­red and extre­me­ly plea­sed to be able to impact the next gene­ra­ti­on of stu­dents and rese­ar­chers. The­re is no sub­sti­tu­te for hands-on lear­ning, and my hope is that MIT.nano will enable and deve­lop the best and brigh­test tech­no­lo­gists and inno­va­tors in the future.”

An acti­ve mem­ber of the MIT com­mu­ni­ty, Su has par­ti­ci­pa­ted in seve­ral alum­ni com­mit­tees and gave the Com­mence­ment address at the Institute’s 2017 Inves­ti­tu­re of Doc­to­ral Hoods. She ser­ved on the Elec­tri­cal Engi­nee­ring and Com­pu­ter Sci­ence Visi­ting Com­mit­tee for 10 years and is curr­ent­ly a mem­ber of the MIT President’s CEO Advi­so­ry Board. In 2018, she estab­lished the Lisa Su Fel­low­ship Fund, which sup­ports fema­le gra­dua­te stu­dents who have demons­tra­ted pro­gress and accom­plish­ments in nanotechnology.

In honor of Su’s gene­ro­si­ty to MIT, Buil­ding 12 will be dedi­ca­ted and named the Lisa T. Su Buil­ding at a cerem­o­ny on May 14.