Hemant K. Thapar ’73, M.S. ’75 has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering for “contributions to theory and practice of coding and signal processing for high-density magnetic recording.” He founded and led two successful startups and is now the founder, chairman, and chief executive of Milpitas-based OmniTier Inc. Hemant received his Ph.D. from Purdue University and served as an adjunct faculty member at SCU from 1984 through 2004.