Carroll A. Thomas
Independent
Ms. Carroll Thomas is a recognized expert in partnership development and organizational change management with more than 40 years public and private sector experience. A former small business owner, she is the former National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Director of the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) and acting Associate Director of Innovation and Industry Services, as well as the former Associate Director for the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) program at the Small Business Administration (SBA).
Ms. Thomas is currently the president of Charles in Charge LLC business. In addition to chairing the board of SMART USA, she volunteers on the Federal Laboratory Consortium’s advisory board, representing over 300 federal laboratories; on Information Technology Innovation Foundation’s board, the top innovation think tank world-wide; on MxD’s (Manufacturing times Digital) board, another Manufacturing USA institute, focused on manufacturing digitization; and on the State Department Federal Credit Union’s board, a $2.9 billion global credit union with 90,000 members. Ms. Thomas is a graduate and member of Leadership Greater Washington. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Drexel University in Design and a Master of Business Administration from John Hopkins Carey School of Business in International Business.
Dr. Richard A. Gottscho
Independent
Richard Gottscho is a semiconductor executive with over 40 years of technical and business leadership experience spanning research, product development, and corporate strategy. He is the former Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President at Lam Research, where he was recognized for shaping innovation at scale and guiding the company’s product and technology groups through pivotal growth into a Fortune 500 leader. He is a globally acclaimed expert in plasma processing, diagnostics, and process control. He is equally at home driving R&D at the cutting edge or leading complex global business operations. He is also the Founder and President of SemiSan LLC, a high-tech consulting firm.
He earned a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics in 1980. He received his B.S. in Chemistry, summa cum laude, from Penn State University in 1974.
Dr. Mark Liu
Independent
Dr. Mark Liu is the Former Executive Chairman of TSMC (2018–2024), where he led its transformation from a Taiwan-centric company into a global enterprise, establishing major operations in the United States, Japan, and Germany. Dr. Liu held key leadership positions throughout his 30-year tenure including President and Co-CEO (2013–2018), Co-COO (2012–2013), and several senior VP roles responsible for pioneering TSMC’s 12-inch fabs, GIGAFAB® operations, and Digitized Fab operations. He is the former Chairman of the Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Association (2019–2023) and twice chaired the World Semiconductor Council (2020, 2022).
Currently, Liu is the Chairman of J&M Copper Beech Ventures and the Founder of U.C. Berkeley’s Technology Competitiveness & Industrial Policy Center. He serves on the Board of Trustees of the U.C. Berkeley Foundation, the Engineering Advisory Board of the U.C. Berkeley College of Engineering and the Board of Directors at Micron Technology.
Dr. Liu holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Chris Miller
Tufts University
Chris Miller’s latest book Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology reveals the geopolitical impact of the computer chip. It is a New York Times bestseller and a winner of the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award, the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 2024 History Prize. It was featured on many “Best of 2022” book lists, including in the New Yorker and the Economist.
Dr. Miller is professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and is a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank in Washington, D.C. He also advises businesses and asset managers at Greenmantle, a consultancy, serves as a member of the Geopolitics Advisory Council at McKinsey & Company, and advises semiconductors and other technology startups and investors.
He has an MA and PhD in history from Yale University and a BA in history from Harvard University.
Manish Muthal
Maverick Capital
Manish is Senior Managing Director at Maverick Silicon and serves on the boards of Axiado and Baya Systems. Prior to joining Maverick in 2024, Mr. Muthal was a Senior Vice President for Hyperscaler engagements at KIOXIA. Before this experience, he served in executive roles at semiconductor companies such as Intel, Xilinx, Broadcom and LSI.
Mr. Muthal has built and led organizations that delivered record revenue growth, has co-founded multiple venture backed start-ups, and has been a corporate investor, sponsor and board advisor at multiple successful companies at their earliest stages. He received his B.S. from Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology Nagpur, India and his M.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of California Santa Barbara.
John Neuffer
Semiconductor Industry Association
John Neuffer is President and CEO of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), which has been the voice of the chip industry for over four decades. He has been at the nexus of technology, public policy, and trade for most of his career.
Since joining SIA in 2015, Mr. Neuffer has led the association’s policy advocacy in Washington and capitals around the world to foster growth and innovation in semiconductor design, manufacturing, and research. He also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Semiconductor Research Corporation, the world’s leading non-profit industry-government-academia microelectronics research consortium.
Richard Ho
OpenAI
Richard Ho leads the Hardware team at OpenAI, where he focuses on co-optimizing large-scale compute systems with the machine learning models that power modern AI.
Earlier in his career, he helped build Google’s TPU program across multiple generations and was part of the D. E. Shaw Research team that developed the Anton 1 and 2 supercomputers for molecular dynamics simulation that saw both machines win the ACM’s Gordon Bell Prize. Richard also co-founded 0-In Design Automation, a pioneer in chip verification tools later acquired by Mentor Graphics/Siemens.
Richard holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University and M.Eng., B.Sc. in Microelectronic Systems Engineering from the University of Manchester, UK.
