The Richard Chu Award for Excellence in Thermal and Thermo-Mechanical Management of Electronics, formerly known as the ITherm Achievement Award was instituted in 1996 and presented in recognition of significant contributions made in thermal and thermo-mechanical aspects of electronics devices and systems. The Award has been re-named to honor late Richard Chu, the first recipient of the ITherm Achievement Award, and a seminal contributor to thermal management of electronics.
The Award was presented during the 2026 ITherm Conference and includes a memento, a plaque, and a $1500 honorarium. Conference registration, and two nights of lodging will be complimentary. The recipient presented an Invited Lecture on a topic of relevance to the conference themes.
2026 Winner – Samuel Graham
Dr. Samuel Graham, Jr. is the Dean of the Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, taking on this role in 2021. He is also a Visiting Professor at Nagoya University in Nagoya, Japan.
His current research centers on the development of electronics made from wide bandgap semiconductors (III-V, oxides) for a range of applications, including optoelectronics, RF communications, power switches, and neuromorphic computing. His work on wide-bandgap semiconductors focuses on engineering the thermal response of devices to enhance heat dissipation and improve device reliability. He has made seminal contributions to the thermal design and metrology of GaN electronics, including the integration of GaN and AlGaN with diamond and AlN for high-power-density devices and the design and characterization of interfaces for improved heat transfer in GaN devices. For his technical contributions, he has been appointed Fellow of ASME, AAAS, and ASTFE. He has also received the Allan Kraus Thermal Management Medal from ASME.
From 1999 to 2003, Dr. Graham was a Sr. Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratory in Livermore, CA. In 2003, he joined the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and was appointed the Eugene C. Gwaltney, Jr. Professor and School Chair in 2018 before moving to the University of Maryland in 2021. Dr. Graham was a member of the Defense Science Study Group, a member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, and a member of the Science and Technology Advisory Board of the Department of the Navy. He currently serves on the Emerging Technologies Technical Advisory Committee of the US Department of Commerce and several advisory boards for colleges of engineering within the United States.