Daniel Worledge

Dr. Worledge received a BA with a double major in Physics and Applied Mathematics from UC Berkeley in 1995, receiving the Department Scholar Award in physics and the Dorothea Klumpke Roberts Prize in mathematics. He then received a PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University in 2000, with a thesis on spin-polarized tunneling in oxide ferromagnets, measuring the largest tunneling spin-polarization in (LaSr)MnO3 and the first negative tunneling spin-polarization in SrRuO3. After joining the Physical Sciences Department at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center as a Post-doc in 2000, he became a Research Staff Member in 2001, inventing and developing Current-in-Plane Tunneling as a fast turn-around measurement method for magnetic tunnel junctions. In 2003, Dr. Worledge became the manager of the MRAM Materials and Devices group, and in 2013 he became Senior Manager of MRAM. In 2015 he was promoted to Distinguished Research Staff Member. He has worked on developing Toggle and then Spin-Transfer-Torque MRAM, including discovering perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in CoFeB|MgO and using these materials to make the first practical perpendicularly magnetized tunnel junctions. Daniel led the IBM team to demonstrate the first integrated perpendicular Spin-Transfer-Torque MRAM, with ultra-low write-error-rate. His current research interests include magnetic devices and their behavior at small dimensions, and new hardware approaches to machine learning. Dr. Worledge has received four IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards, three IBM Outstanding Innovation Awards, the IBM Research Client Award, and is a Fellow of APS and IEEE.