My distinguished colleague, Dr. Stuart Parkin, invited Dr. Albert Fert to IBM Research – Almaden today, and also arranged for me to meet with Dr. Fert.
Bio: Albert Fert (born 7 March 1938 in Carcassonne, Aude) is a French physicist and one of the discoverers of giant magnetoresistance which brought about a breakthrough in gigabyte hard disks. He is currently professor at Universit Paris-Sud in Orsay and scientific director of a joint laboratory (‘Unit mixte de recherche’) between the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (National Scientific Research Centre) and Thales Group. Also, he is an Adjunct professor of physics at Michigan State University. He was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics together with Peter Grnberg.