Lois Diane Harper Walsh is a retired researcher for the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). Originally a materials scientist, she became branch chief for advanced computing at the AFRL

Rome Laboratory Rome Laboratory (Rome Air Development Center until 1991) is the US "Air Force 'superlab' for command, control, and communications" research and development and is responsible for planning and executing the USAF science and technology program. ...

. Walsh earned a master's degree from

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

in 1984, with the master's thesis ''Microstructural characterization of Copper films deposited in Titanium substrates''. By the time she completed her Ph.D. in solid state science at Syracuse in 1989, she was already working at the Rome laboratory (then known as the Rome Air Development Center), and married with two children. Her dissertation, ''The interaction of polycrystalline copper films with dilute aqueous solutions of cupric chloride'', was supervised by James A. Schwarz, a Syracuse professor of chemical engineering and materials science. In 2005, Walsh was named an IEEE Fellow "for leadership in electronic device reliability". At this point she was branch chief for advanced computing at the Rome Laboratory, in charge of a team of 30 staff researchers, and had fostered collaborations between them and "numerous extramural researchers and university faculty". Her work involved not only device reliability, based on "innovative surface analysis and diagnostic techniques", but also high performance computing,

quantum computing Quantum computing is a type of computation whose operations can harness the phenomena of quantum mechanics, such as superposition, interference, and entanglement. Devices that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers. Though ...

, and biologically inspired

nanotechnology Nanotechnology, also shortened to nanotech, is the use of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale for industrial purposes. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal o ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walsh, Lois Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American materials scientists American women engineers Syracuse University alumni Air Force Research Laboratory people Fellows of the IEEE 21st-century American women