Micron names Deirdre Hanford to head Micron Research Labs

Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) has appointed Deirdre Hanford as corporate vice president and president of Micron Research Labs, the company's long-horizon research institution announced in August 2026 and headquartered in Boise, Idaho.

Hanford will be responsible for establishing the research infrastructure, operating model and partnerships for the lab, as well as defining its research agenda across academia, government, startups and the broader industry. She joins as a member of the Innovation, Technology and Products leadership team under Scott DeBoer, president and chief technology and products officer.

Micron Research Labs is backed by a planned $10 billion investment over the next decade and is part of Micron's broader U.S. commitment of more than $250 billion in manufacturing and research and development, which the company says is expected to create 90,000 American jobs. The lab's work spans memory process technologies, future memory and compute architectures, advanced packaging and next-generation semiconductor manufacturing across sites in the U.S., Europe, Japan, India, Singapore and Taiwan.

Hanford spent 37 years at Synopsys, where she held roles including chief security officer, co-general manager of the Design Group and executive vice president of customer engagement. Most recently, she advised organizations in semiconductors, electronic design automation, national defense and AI, and previously led a national effort focused on U.S. semiconductor research and workforce development.

She serves on the UC Berkeley College of Engineering Advisory Board, the MIT School of Engineering Dean's Advisory Council and the SEMI Board of Industry Leaders. She also received the 2025 IEEE Frederik Philips Award for leadership in electronic design automation.

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