From 1985 to 2004, he was an Endowed Chair Professor at the Center for Memory and Recording Research (CMRR),[1] University of California at San Diego.

These studies focussed on high density signals and noise including the behavior of the write head pole-tips under saturation.

This included studies of granular thin film media, write and read heads, and the ultimate areal-density limit in high density magnetic recording collaborating, for example, with Mason Williams.

These included Jimmy Zhu, Carl Che, Manfred Schabes, Kaizhong Gao, Dan Wei, Xiaobin Wang, David Wachenschwanz, Samuel Yuan[12] and Alex Barany[13] among many others.

In particular, the work with Zhu on large scale numerical simulations utilizing the San Diego Supercomputer Center[14] revealed the critical role of exchange interaction in perpendicular magnetic recording.

[19] In 2003, Bertram won the IEEE Reynold B. Johnson Information Storage Systems Award for "fundamental and pioneering contributions to magnetic recording physics research".

Other contemporary recipients include Denis Mee, Chris Bajorek, Mark Kryder, Alan Shugart, Jim Lemke.

In 2004, Bertram and Kaizhong Gao were honored with the annual technical achievement award from INSIC (International Storage Industry Consortium) for "pioneering work in the exploration of tilted magnetic recording and the resulting insights contributed to the INSIC EHDR Research Program for advanced hard disk storage technology".

[24] in 1992, Bertram and J. Zhu collaborated on the chapter "Fundamental Magnetization Processes in Thin-Film Recording Media" in Solid State Physics: Volume 46, Eds.