Dr. Craig Prater has been a visionary leader in the development and commercialization of novel scientific measurement techniques for over 30 years. After completing a PhD in physics at the University of California Santa Barbara, Craig spent 15 years in various roles in R&D and leadership, culminating as Chief Technologist, at Veeco Metrology (now Bruker), the market leader in the field of atomic force microscopy (AFM). Craig was heavily involved in the development and commercialization of many AFM technologies and instruments that are now in widespread use in academic and industrial research and have been used in hundreds of thousands of scientific publications. In 2005 Craig was recognized as the first Technology Fellow at Veeco Instruments, the highest technical rank in an organization of ~2000 employees.