Students

Mentor Lunch

The Student Mentor Lunch lets students pick the minds of professionals from academia, government and industry. It’s a chance to hear from the experts why they chose their field, what it takes to get there, and what it’s really like once they arrived. The Mentor Lunch also features a speaker who provides an expert “how to” discussion on new topic each year. 

2024 Mentor Lunch

Stella W. Pang
Prof. Stella W. Pang

Prof. Stella W. Pang is a Chair Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Director of the Center for Biosystems, Neuroscience, and Nanotechnology at the City University of Hong Kong, China. Prior to her current roles, she was a Professor and Associate Dean at the University of Michigan and a Technical Staff member at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

  Prof. Pang has over 400 technical articles, book chapters, and invited presentations. She holds thirteen patents in the fields of nanotechnology and microsystems, with two more pending. Her research primarily focuses on the development of nanofabrication technology for applications in biomedical, microelectromechanical, THz, and meta-devices. Prof. Pang is a Fellow of IEEE, the ECS, the AVS, the HKIE, and HKAES.

2023 Mentor Lunch

Do Something Different

Fabian Pease
Prof. R. Fabian Pease​

After 2 years’ military service (RAF), Fabian Pease went to Cambridge University and received his BA in Natural Sciences and PhD in Electrical Engineering. For his PhD he designed, built and demonstrated the first scanning electron microscope to achieve 10 nm resolution. He then joined the Faculty at U.C. Berkeley and continued research in scanning electron microscopy. He joined Bell Laboratories in 1967 where he first worked on digital television and then on electron beam lithography. 

Since 1978 he has been a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University where he holds the William Ayer Chair. His group’s accomplishments include the micro-channel heat sink which could remove 1.5K W from 1x1cm^2 silicon and winning the Feynman microwriting prize. Pease was a co-founder of Brion Technologies, spent a year on sabbatical at Affymetrix researching DNA synthesis and two years at DARPA managing programs in Advanced Electronics and Molecular Level Printing. 

He was the recipient of the first IEEE Paul Rappaport Award, the IEEE Cledo Brunetti Award, and the Richard P. Feynman Prize for microfabrication. He is Fellow of the IEEE and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

2022 Mentor Lunch

“Where are you heading ?” The trials and tribulations of an immigrant Latino physicist

Leonidas Ocola
Leonidas E. Ocola

The 2022 Mentor Lunch Speaker was Leonidas E. Ocola. Dr. Ocola is a Research Staff Member of IBM T. J. Watson Research Center since 2017. Born in Lima Peru in 1962, he received his B.Sc. from the Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria (Lima, Peru) in 1988, his M.Sc. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1991 and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1996, in physics. He worked for at Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies in Murray Hill developing resist technology for SCALPEL, a projection electron beam lithography tool. Dr. Ocola joined Argonne National Laboratory in 2002 and worked there for 15 years, where he was involved with the design, construction, and instrumentation procurement of a new DOE funded nanocenter, the Center for Nanoscale Materials. His research there involved a diverse array of topics ranging from electron beam lithography, nanofabrication, ion beam microfabrication, materials science. He also mentored or supervised high school, undergraduate, and graduate students, and postdocs. Dr. Ocola has published over 175 papers, and 1 book and holds three patents. His current research interests include electron beam lithography and simulating high-energy electron beam interactions with polymer materials, scanning probe characterization techniques, ALD infiltration in porous materials, nanosensors, neuromorphic and quantum devices.

2021 Mentor Lunch

The 2021 Mentor Lunch featured legendary Professor Henry (Hank) Smith. 

Presenting a Memorable Talk or Poster

(How to Present Three Years of Research in 30 Minutes)

Henry I. Smith
Henry I. Smith

Henry I. Smith is Professor of Electrical Engineering Emeritus at MIT. He’s a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the IEEE, the OSA and the National Academy of Inventors. He’s a recipient of the IEEE Robert N. Noyes Medal, the Cledo Brunetti Award of the IEEE, the Baccus Award of SPIE, the Nano 50 Innovator Award, the Robert H. Hill Memorial Award, the Professional Excellence Award of the Boston College Alumni Association, and an honorary Doctor of Science from Holy Cross College. Professor Smith was 1977 EIPBN Conference Chair and is currently a member of the Advisory Committee. He’s well known as an enthusiastic student mentor, and a long-time friend and contributor to the EIPBN community.