Date and Time: Thursday, 29th October 2020 at 1:50 PM to 3:30 PM
Organizers: Jimil M. Shah and Saket Karajgikar
Details: Effective job search with skilled networking is extremely important for engineers and researchers especially in current situation. This workshop will focus on the career development and job hunting. Three presenters – two from academia and one from industry will discuss key do's and don'ts of networking and job search. They will share their experiences and offer advice about designing effective job-hunting tools. Professors from different institutions will also provide their expertise and market current graduating students through a video.
Program
1:50 AM – 2:00 PM – Welcome and Introduction, Dr. Jimil M. Shah
2:00 PM – 2:15 PM – Prof. Dereje Agonafer
2:15 PM – 2:30 PM – Dr. Saket Karajgikar
2:30 PM – 2:45 PM – Prof. Amy S. Fleischer
2:45 PM – 3:15 PM – Video
3:15 PM – 3:30 PM – Q&A and Concluding remarks, Dr. Jimil M. Shah
Biographies
Dereje Agonafer is a Presidential Distinguished Professor in MAE at University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) where he heads two centers: Site Director of NSF I/UCRC in Energy Efficient Systems and Director of Electronic Packaging. After receiving his PhD at Howard University, he worked for 15 years at IBM. In 1991, his work was recognized by being awarded the "IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award in Appreciation for Computer Aided Thermal Modeling.” Since joining UTA in 1999, he has graduated 230 graduate students (a record for the University) including 25 PhDs and currently advising 16 PhDs and 13 MS students. His former students are making significant contributions in many technology companies such as Facebook, Intel, 3M, Microsoft, and Amazon. His new initiative is to start a new center called RAMPES (Center for Reliability Assessment in Micro and Power Electronic Systems) for which he has received significant funding including $1.3M for new equipment, 3000 sq ft of new lab space, Assistant and Associate Professor openings to work with him, and research engineer among others. For his contributions, he has received numerous awards including the 2008 Thermi Award, the 2009 InterPACK Excellence Award, the 2014 ITHERM Achievement Award, the 2014 NSBE Golden Torch Award and the 2019 ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award. In 2020, he was the recipient of Howard University Charter Day Award for Distinguished Postgraduate Achievement: research engineer. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In 2019, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. According to Dean Crouch, “the first current faculty member elected to the Academy.” Professor Agonafer is married to his wife Carolyn and they have two children; a son, Dr. Damena Agonafer who is Professor of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science at Washington University in St. Louis, and a daughter, Dr. Senayet Agonafer, a Radiologist, who works at Lennox Hill Radiology in New York City.
Saket Karajgikar has experience in developing thermal solutions at both data center level and at HW level. When he was working with Future Facilities, he assessed numerous data centers and provided recommendation to operate those efficiently. Later at Hyve Solutions, he managed team of thermal engineers while providing design inputs for compute and storage platforms. At Facebook, he is a lead engineer bridging the gap between HW design team and Data Center Solutions to ensure efficient and reliable operations of Facebook’s fleet of servers. Before joining industry, he graduated from University of Texas at Arlington under supervision of Prof. Agonafer.
Dr. Amy S. Fleischer is in her third year of leadership as Dean of Engineering at Cal Poly. In this role she sets strategic direction for the college and oversees the operations of the eight departments, 14-degree programs, 220 FTE faculty, 55 staff, 6000 students and a $40M budget. She is a passionate advocate for Cal Poly's Learn by Doing approach to engineering education.
Before arriving in San Luis Obispo, Dean Fleischer was a Professor and Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department and director of the National Science Foundation Research Center for Energy-Smart Electronic Systems at Villanova University. She was on the faculty at Villanova for 18 years. As an internationally recognized research expert in thermal management of electronics systems, she has led work on 42 research grants funded for a total of $7.4M and has published more than 90 peer-reviewed publications and two books.
Dean Fleischer is also active in leadership in the broader engineering community, and currently serves as the chair of ASME's Electronics and Photonics Packaging Division and on the Diversity and Inclusion Committee of ASEE’s Engineering Dean's Council. She also co-chairs the CSU Engineering Dean’s council. She is a fellow of ASME and has won numerous teaching and research awards.