Dennis Grimard, PhD

Dennis S. Grimard received his Associates of Engineering (A.E.) degree in Mechanical Engineering Technology from Vermont Technical College in 1977 and his Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1982. His postgraduate work includes both a Master of Science (M.S.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees in electrical engineering (majoring in Solid-State Physics and minoring in Circuits) from The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1984 and 1990, respectively. His thesis title was “Utilizing Diffraction for Real-Time in situ Wafer Monitoring.”

Dr. Grimard talks about his educational path this way, “My life can be divided precisely in time by my experiences before and after VTC.  Prior to Vermont Tech, I was a poor performing academic student with minimal prospects in life. After Vermont Tech I excelled.  The college taught me math and physics and English. Once I had that fully grounded experience, the rest of my academic career was set for success.” He describes the impact of starting here as, “Every success in my life can be traced back to my training at Vermont Tech. VTC is the scaffolding on which I have built my entire academic, industrial, and professional career.”

Dr. Grimard worked in both industry (Cincinnati-Milacron, Ford Motor Company, Techware Systems, and IBM) and academia (post-doc, research scientist, and Managing Director of the Lurie Nanofabrication Facility) for more than 39 years. In addition, Dr. Grimard has served as an expert witness (Kirkland & Ellis) and consultant (IBM, Applied Materials, KLA-Tencor, Pivotal Systems, Watlow, Novellus, Veeco, Intavac, and PlasmaTherm) for more than 21 years. Currently, Dr. Grimard is the Managing Director of MIT.nano; an ambitious state-of-the-art facility that will house more than 101,000 SF of new laboratory space that includes more than 47,000 SF of cleanroom and 11,000 SF of advanced imaging capacity. Dr. Grimard has co-authored numerous peer-reviewed papers addressing the theoretical and practical limitations of RF metrology and feed-forward control of complex systems. His consultancy has produced more than 20,000 hours of technical output and 1.5 million miles of travel resulting in more than 33 patents covering every aspect of semiconductor tool technology.

Dr. Grimard was the Commencement speaker in 2017. He spoke to the students about hard work and determination being keys to success.Check out the news coverage from Valley News and the Herald of Randolph.

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  • School

    Engineering and Computing

  • Class of...

    1977

  • Hometown

    Barre, VT