Susanne Stemmer is Professor of Materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Following undergraduate studies in Materials Science at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany), she received her degree in 1992, and did her doctoral work at the Max-Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart (Germany). She received her doctoral degree from the University of Stuttgart in 1995. Following postdoctoral research positions in the US and Belgium, she held an Assistant Professor position in Materials Science at Rice University from 1999 to 2002. In 2002, she joined the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Her research interests are in transmission electron microscopy techniques, in particular, the development of scanning transmission electron microscopy as a quantitative tool in materials science, novel gate dielectrics, oxide thin film growth and the correlation between structure and the electronic and transport properties of oxide heterostructures.

She has authored or co-authored more than 140 journal publications. In 2000, she received an NSF Career Award. Prof. Stemmer is a member of the Basic Science Division of ACerS and has organized symposia at several conferences for ACerS. She has served as the Co-Program Chair of the Basic Science Division in 2006/07. In 2006 she and her co-authors received an Edward C. Henry Best Paper Award from the Society.