The College reports with sadness the death of former Master, Life Fellow and Honorary Fellow, Professor Haroon Ahmed. The College armorial is flying at half-mast today as a mark of respect.

Professor Haroon Ahmed PhD ScD FREng
born Calcutta, India, 2 March 1936; died Cambridge, England, 23 October 2024, aged 88

Haroon Ahmed was born in Calcutta in 1936 to Bilquis and Mohammad Nizamuddin Ahmed, the third of four children. He lived in Delhi until 1947 when the partition of India forced the family to flee to a refugee camp and then by mercy flight to Karachi in the newly formed Pakistan. In Karachi, he attended St Patrick’s High School, where he excelled academically, and developed a love of cricket.

In 1954, the family moved to London when Haroon’s father was appointed to the Pakistan Embassy as a civil engineer. In London, Haroon completed A Levels at Chiswick Polytechnic and then read Electrical Engineering at Imperial College, graduating with a First Class degree. After a brief spell working for General Electric Company in Birmingham, he realised his passion was for research. Encouraged by a friend, he successfully applied for a PhD scholarship at King’s College Cambridge, having seen an advertisement in the Cambridge University Reporter. At Cambridge, he completed a PhD on high-current cathodes and scanning electron microscopy, and captained the Department of Engineering’s Cricket XI.

In 1963, Haroon was appointed to a Demonstratorship in the Department of Engineering, and in 1967 promoted to a full University Lectureship and elected to a Fellowship at Corpus Christi College Cambridge. He was elected Master of Corpus Christi College in 2000, and served in that role until 2006, following which he became a Life Fellow and was elected to an Honorary Fellowship. Dedicated to the College, he also served as Warden of the College’s postgraduate community at Leckhampton, from 1993 to 1998. His time as Master was a prosperous and happy one for the College; he oversaw a resurgence in academic standards; the building of the Taylor Library; and, in collaboration with Stanford University, the digitisation of the Parker Library manuscripts.

Haroon had a distinguished academic career centred on research interests in the physics and technology of nanoscale electronic devices, nanotechnology and electron beam lithography. He published several hundred scientific papers including significant articles on electron beams, single electron devices, and their application in future generations of semiconductor chips. In 1969, he spent a formative sabbatical year in New York state where he worked at the Thomas J Watson Research Centre of IBM. On his return to Cambridge, his research activity grew rapidly. In 1982 he moved his growing research group to the Cambridge Science Park, and then, in 1984, to the Cavendish Laboratory where he established the Microelectronics Research Centre, sponsored by Hitachi. In 1990, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, in 1992 he was promoted to Professor of Microelectronics, and in 1996 he was awarded a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Cambridge. After retiring from the University, he took up a post advising the Government of Pakistan on setting up new universities, and the legacies of his work there continue. He also served as a Syndic of Cambridge University Press, as a Non-Executive Director on the board of Addenbrookes NHS Hospital Trust, as President of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, and as a member of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s MacRobert Award Committee. He continued to write on the history of science long after his retirement, publishing several books.

Haroon met Anne Goodrich, a nurse working at Addenbrookes Hospital, in 1967, and they married in 1969. They settled in Newnham, Cambridge, where they brought up their three children. His family was at the centre of his life; he was as devoted to his four grandchildren as to Anne and their children. Haroon supervised and lectured to generations of undergraduate students in the University, and supervised countless research students, many of whom became his collaborators and friends. He was a firm believer in education as a force for good. His work as an educator and his life more broadly were shaped by a commitment to equality and social justice. Outside of his career as a scientist he was an avid reader with a love of literature. He was keen on many sports including golf, squash, tennis, table tennis, but in particular cricket, for which he had a lifelong passion.

Professor Haroon Ahmed is survived by his wife, Anne; his children, Ayesha, Rehana and Imran; his grandchildren, Max, Jem, Keir and Maya; and his sister, Zubaida.