Leading Phoenix manufacturer ON Semiconductor invests in business, engineering with named ASU professorships

Two Arizona State University faculty members have been named the inaugural ON Semiconductor Professors in Business and Engineering to attract, support and retain top business and engineering talent in the Phoenix area.

Leading semiconductor-based solutions supplier and longtime ASU industry partner ON Semiconductor created these endowed professorships and committed $2 million to the W. P. Carey School of Business and the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering named professors over a five-year period. The gift, like all private donations made to ASU, contributes to Campaign ASU 2020.

Bertan Bakkaloglu, a professor of electrical engineering, was named the ON Semiconductor Professor of Engineering, and Dale S. Rogers, a professor of logistics and supply chain management, was named the ON Semiconductor Professor of Business. These distinguished faculty members were nominated by their respective schools.

This partnership will help both ASU and ON Semiconductor sustain the growth in resources and people needed to maintain leadership in the tech market.

“Phoenix is quickly becoming a place where technology companies are looking to expand, and that means academic-industry partnerships will increase their importance both on the research and design front, as well as the talented individuals leading the charge with new innovative approaches, automation and systems,” said Tobin Cookman, senior vice president of human resources at ON Semiconductor, which offers a portfolio of products to help engineers solve electronic design problems and boasts a reliable world-class supply chain.

The professorships mark the latest in a long line of collaborations between ASU and ON Semiconductor stretching back to 1999. The two institutions have partnered on numerous initiatives to foster growth in both academic and industrial advancement, and the new partnership was welcomed by the deans of both the business and engineering schools. 

“This partnership with ON Semiconductor not only provides terrific recognition of our outstanding faculty, it also advances our research capabilities and drives meaningful change to help cement the Phoenix area as a business and technology leader,” said Kyle Squires, dean of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. “We look forward to what ON Semiconductor, the Fulton Schools and the W. P. Carey School can accomplish together to impact the future of innovation in engineering and business.”

Amy Hillman, dean of the W. P. Carey School of Business and holder of the Rusty Lyon Chair in Strategy, added, “ON Semiconductor is driving innovation and operating a reliable and responsive supply chain with high standards for ethics and compliance. As a business school with a top-ranked supply chain management program, we are thrilled to collaborate with ON Semiconductor and grateful for this investment in our impressive faculty. I am confident that the partnership between ON Semiconductor and the W. P. Carey School will fuel more impactful research and discovery.”  

The professors named by ON Semiconductor are pushing the frontiers of scholarly impact and productivity in the fields of business and engineering, as well as inspiring and engaging students as mentors, advocates and role models.

“We look to work closely with faculty and researchers to keep up with the latest technology developments,” Cookman said. 

The named professorship funds will benefit the recipients’ research, equipment, facilities, student support and associated scholarly endeavors.

Bakkaloglu is grateful for the ON Semiconductor’s support, which will allow him to grow the Fulton Schools’ programs and influence in the industry.

“The ON Semiconductor Professorship will enable me to grow our analog, mixed signal and radio frequency design curriculum and research program further, making it one of the premier programs in the country,” Bakkaloglu said. 

Bakkaloglu joined ASU’s electrical engineering faculty in 2004 after working in industry on system-on-chip designs with integrated battery management and analog baseband functionality as a design leader at Texas Instruments.

He is an expert in radio frequency (RF) and power amplifier (PA) supply regulators, RF synthesizers, biomedical and instrumentation circuits and systems, high-speed RF data converters and RF built-in-self-test circuits for communication integrated circuits.

Rogers is a leading researcher in the fields of reverse logistics, sustainable supply chain management, supply chain finance and secondary markets with an extensive history in publishing, presentation and academic professional organizations and boards. In 2012, he became the first academic to receive the International Warehouse and Logistics Association Distinguished Service Award in its 120-year history.

Rogers feels honored to be awarded an endowed position named for a company in an industry that improves people’s lives.

“ON Semiconductor has a rich history and a strong record of innovation that has led to an improved standard of living for billions of people globally,” said Rogers, who has a more than 30-year history of working in the semiconductor industry.

Rogers hopes to expand his research with Elliot Rabinovich, a professor of supply chain management, on the internet’s influence on supply chain management evolution. 

“I am hoping that the support of the ON Semiconductor Professorship will help us expand the Internet Edge Supply Chain Lab,” Rogers said. “It is already growing quickly, but we are hoping that it will be the preeminent research lab on internet-enabled supply chain management.”

Jeff Wincel, vice president and chief procurement officer at ON Semiconductor, has a strong relationship with the W. P. Carey School of Business. He is a current ASU Trustee representing the W. P. Carey School of Business, as well as a member of the W. P. Carey Dean’s Council and has served as a faculty associate of the supply chain management department.

In addition to his connection to the W. P. Carey School, Wincel’s connection to Rogers goes back many years. In fact, Wincel was one of Rogers’ first students when Rogers taught logistics as a doctoral student at Michigan State University in the late 1980s.

“Dr. Dale Rogers is among the first-generation academics and early pioneers in supply chain management (SCM). His work and research has reshaped a discipline that was once seen as little more than administrative processing,” Wincel said. “Dr. Rogers is among a select group that has advanced SCM to an important and meaningful discipline, providing strategic insight and competitive advantage to the world’s leading companies. We are proud to have Dr. Rogers as the first recipient of the ON Semiconductor Professor of Business at the W. P. Carey School of Business.”

Cookman is looking forward to what this partnership can accomplish in the supply chain and engineering fields. 

“Collaborating with top-ranked schools like the W. P. Carey School of Business and the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering leads to creative and original solutions in both the supply chain and engineering industries,” Cookman said. “As both markets mature, the next generation of highly skilled business and engineering leaders will be needed to advance the technology innovation of the future.”