Amit Das, Ph.D., MBA
1985g, 1988g
Director of New Product Development, State of the Art, Inc.
Amit Das is currently the director of new product development at State of the Art, Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania. The company manufactures high reliability chip resistors for mission critical applications and has been in business for over fifty years. He has been in this role for nineteen years and has helped the company develop several new products, and processes.
He has used the characterization tools available at Penn State's Materials Characterization Lab to improve properties of existing chip resistors, as well for the development of new resistors with unique properties.
Das has played an important role in research and development at several other organizations, such as Rogers Corporation, Chandler, Arizona, where he was the engineering manager developing better dielectrics for high frequency circuit boards. Research fellow at Mead Specialty Products, Chillicothe, Ohio, improving paper composites for automotive break liners, and laminate flooring. President of ATA Coatings & Devices, Columbus, Ohio, a company that he started to enable the outsourcing of research and development in various types of coatings, from tribological to anti-reflection. Research scientist at Philip Morris Research, Richmond, Virginia, developing electronic inhalation products and sensors.
Das has a master of science and a doctoral degree in solid state science from Penn State and a MBA from Virginia Commonwealth University. He was an adjunct faculty member at Averett University, Virginia, teaching quantitative business analysis. He has over twenty U.S. patents and has presented at several conferences.
Being on the board of Penn State's Graduate School Alumni Association and the chairman of the Global Outreach Committee, Das travelled around the world to connect with Penn State Alumni. Also, he started a seminar series at Penn State inviting faculty members and industrial leaders to talk about their experiences that would be pertinent to graduating students.
Das delivered the 2019 Distinguished Tressler Lecture in Materials at Penn State. In 2022, he joined the Executive Advisor Board of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University.
He currently resides in State College. His hobbies include and ballroom dancing and traveling.