Daniel M. Fleetwood (born August 3, 1958) is an American scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator. He is credited as being one of the first to identify the origins of flicker noise in semiconductor devices and its usefulness in understanding the effects of ionizing radiation on microelectronic devices and materials. Fleetwood is the Olin H. Landreth Chair of Electrical Engineering at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. His research work focuses on the effects of ionizing radiation on microelectronic devices and materials, origins of 1/f noise in semiconductors and radiation hardness assurance. In 1997 he received R&D 100 and IndustryWeek magazine awards for co-inventing a new type of computer memory chip based on mobile protons. The chip was recognized as Discover magazine's 1998 Invention of the Year in computer hardware and electronics. In 2000 he was named one of the top 250 most highly cited researchers in engineering by the Institute for Scientific Information. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and American Physical Society, and a Grandmaster of International Correspondence Chess. Early life and education Fleetwood was born on August 3, 1958 in Surprise, Indiana to Louis and Dorothy Fleetwood. He graduated from Seymour High School (Indiana) in 1976. He took active interest in sports and was a member of the Seymour High School baseball team, pitching a perfect game in 1976. He joined Department of Physics and Applied Mathematics in Purdue University as an undergraduate. He graduated from Purdue in 1984 with a PhD in physics. He received the 1984 Lark-Horovitz Award, Purdue University in recognition of demonstrated ability and exceptional promise in research in solid-state physics. Career Sandia National Laboratories Fleetwood joined Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1984. He was named a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff in the Radiation Technology and Assurance Department in 1990. In 1997 he received R&D 100 and IndustryWeek magazine awards for co-invention of a new type of computer memory chip based on mobile protons in Silicon dioxide (protonic nonvolatile field effect transistor memory). This chip was also recognized as Discover magazine's 1998 Invention of the Year in computer hardware and electronics. In 2000 he was named one of the top 250 most highly cited researchers in Engineering by the Institute for Scientific Information. Vanderbilt University In 1999 Fleetwood left Sandia to accept the position of Professor of Electrical Engineering at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.