ECS President | 2014-2015
Paul A. Kohl was born in Buffalo, NY on August 6, 1952. He received his BS degree from Bethany College in 1974 and his Ph.D. from The University of Texas in 1978, both in Chemistry.
Dr. Kohl began his career at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, NJ where he was involved in creating new chemical processes for silicon, compound semiconductor, and MEMS devices or their packages.
In 1989 he left AT&T Bell Laboratories to join the faculty of the Georgia Institute of Technology in the School of Chemical Bimolecular Engineering, where he is a Regents’ Professor and holds the Thomas L. Gossage/Hercules Inc. Chair.
Dr. Kohl’s research areas of interest include the design of new materials, processes, and packages for advanced interconnect for integrated circuits and MEMS devices. He is the past director of the Semiconductor Research Corporation/DARPA Interconnect Focus Center, where he worked to create new technological solutions for future electronic devices. This includes the creation of new photosensitive dielectric materials for electronic packaging, ultra low-k dielectrics, and the design and fabrication of MEMS packages. His research group at the Georgia Institute of Technology demonstrated and modeled the first ever ionic liquid/fluorocarbon absorption refrigeration cycle.
He has been involved in many electrochemical studies including the electroless deposition of copper and gold for interconnect in electronic packaging, new materials and designs for alkaline fuel cells, and high density anodes for lithium batteries. He has also been involved in the use of ionic liquid electrolytes for sodium and lithium batteries.
Dr. Kohl became an active member of The Electrochemical Society in 1975. In 1992, he was named the first editor of Interface, where he took the prototype and evolved it into what it is today. He is also the past editor of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES) and founding editor of the journal Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters. During his time as JES Editor, Dr. Kohl guided the journal through a complete transition from an exclusively paper model to a completely online publication.
Among his many accomplishments at The Electrochemical Society, Dr. Kohl was named a fellow in 2002, received the Carl Wagner Award in 2001 for his achievements and excellence in research areas of interest to the Society, and was presented the DS&T Division’s Thomas J. Callinan Award in 2008.
