Materials Science and Engineering Alumni News Archive
Spring 2006
Team of Maryland Grads at Intel
Four recent Ph.D. graduates of the MSE graduate program will continue to see each other at Intel in Chandler, Arizona. Zhengkun Ma, Hongxia Feng, Yuhong Cai and Ladan Mohaddes Ardabili have all accepted positions at the facility which specializes in electronic packaging. They work in the same building but on different projects. Olugbenga Famodu has also joined Intel, but he is working a little farther north in Portland, Oregon. He received his Ph.D. in 2005.
Dr. Ma is working on failure analysis for electronic packaging materials to support pathfinding projects which are for applications in the next few years. Dr. Feng is focusing on the use of polymers for packaging of microelectronic devices. Dr. Cai is a pathfinding engineer, designing and developing a low density integration (LDI) semiconductor product based on the future market trend. She specifically is working on two projects: Stacked Package-on-Package (PoP) Design and WLAN product design. Dr. Mohaddes will work in the research and pathfinding sector to develop new electronic packaging methods. Dr. Famodu is working in the Thin Films group on the fabrication of semiconductor processing by using high purity metal sputtering. He is also part of the exciting new manufacturing process development, including the transition to 300 mm (12 in) wafers, as well as the migration from 0.13 micron to 90 nanometer technology. We wish them luck in their future endeavors!
Ouyang Receives Award
Jun Ouyang received his Ph.D. from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in 2005 under the direction of Prof. Alex Roytburd. He recently received a 2005 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Students Abroad. He was one of 53 current and former Chinese Ph.D. students in the U.S. and the only one at the University of Maryland receiving this prestigious, merit-based award. Dr. Ouyang currently works at Seagate Technology in Minnesota involved in developing new high density consumer electronic data storage.
All the World's a Stage
Two years ago, Chen Kung had just received his Bachelor's degree in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Maryland. Now, he is working in China for Ford Motor Compnay in their China Sourcing Office.
During his senior year, he received a job offer from Ford Motor Company to join their Ford College Graduate (FCG) program. Ford's FCG program consists of five developmental assignments throughout various areas of the company with each assignment lasting 6 months. Participants in FCG can also elect to pursue an advanced degree while working. Chen states that "the FCG program was the transition I needed from school to the 'real world' so I accepted their job offer. I'm now on my third assignment at Ford and am pursuing a Masters of Science in Industrial Engineering at Purdue University-West Lafayette."
His first assignment at Ford was as a corrosion engineer for their North American operations. He learned about general corrosion science, accelerated weather testing, and the importance of tetanus shots. Following corrosion, Chen joined Ford's Asia Pacific and Africa's (AP&A) technology deployment group. His responsibilities in AP&A included engineering parts for experimental research projects and implementing materials management systems to ensure that their vehicles meet global environmental standards. Currently, he is on an international assignment in China. He states that it is an exciting time to be in China. He has been mentoring and training newly hired employees and assisting in material selections for the parts Ford is sourcing. His next assignment may be in the area of hybrid vehicle and fuel cell design.
Please feel free to email him if you have any comments or questions at chen9358@gmail.com.
There is Always More to Learn
About half of the graduates of the undergraduate MSE program go onto graduate school either immediately following graduation or as they pursue careers.
Joanna Meador graduated in Spring 2005 and went directly to graduate school at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, PA. She is enrolled in the Ph.D. program working on a project exploring Praseodymium Calcium Manganate (Pr0.7Ca0.3MnO3) as a possible material for storage material based on resistive switching. Resistive switching is being able to obtain two different resistances based on applied voltage. Joanna is happy to correspond about life as a graduate student with interested undergraduates. Her email address is jmeador@andrew.cmu.edu.
Kunal Thaker also went directly to graduate school after graduation. He attends the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is working on his Masters degree on a project involving the design and process control/characterization of hot micro-embossing. He reports that this is a promising method being investigated for the fabrication of polymer-based micro-devices (micro-fluidics and micro-optics). Kunal will graduate in June 2006 and will join the DC based consulting firm Booz-Allen-Hamilton.
Adding to the Knowledge Base
While many of our students go to work in industry or for government labs after graduate school, some decide to remain in school, but this time as faculty members. Mutsuhiro Shima received his Ph.D. in 1998, was a guest researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and completed a post doctorate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is an Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses.
Alumnus Receives Tenure
Pamir Alpay received his Ph.D. in 1999 under the direction of Prof. Alex Roytburd. He is a MSE faculty member at the University of Connecticut and was recently promoted from Assistant to Associate Professor with tenure.
Micron Memories
Several recent graduates have taken positions at Micron Technologies in Manassas, Virginia. Chandler McCann, Erin Flanagan, Adam Haughton and Bryan Orf will join the company, which is a leader in advanced semiconductors and flash memory devices.
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