Mentoring

Throughout my graduate experience I have tried to give back by being a research mentor and have been invovled with programs that coordinated with local high schools, community colleges and a large national technology organization. Below are a list of programs and organizations I have had the privilege to be apart of.

Programs

NNIN – Optical and electrical optimization of highspeed vertical cavity lasers – 2011 (National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network) I Showed my intern the basics of material growth, fabrication and testing. We also designed a way to characterize a light emitting quantum well semiconductor material and later processed it in the cleanroom to create diode structures. The intern then continued to test both the electrical and optical characteristics of the device he fabricated.

INSET- Processing and testing of GaAs based ridge lasers – 2009 (Internships in Nanosystems Science, Engineering and Technology) In this project my intern and I grew laser material using a specialized semiconductor growth method called MBE (moleculare beam epitaxy). After processing it in the cleanroon, he tested the lasers performance and investigated electrical noise characteristics. He also learned to write scripts to analyse data.

INSET – Telephone for Alzheimer’s patients – 2008 Working with a group of 5 undergraduate students in electrical and computer engineering, we looked at ways to add much needed functionality to the common telephone for patients that are suffering from Alzheimer’s. The students interviewed families of patients as well as staff in local care centers to get a better picture of what was needed. A prototype was then developed.

AR – Programming of microcontrollers – 2007 My first summer mentoring experience was with a high school student. We went through the basics of using a microcontroller for taking in data from a GPS device developed by undergraduate students in my LITE course.

Student Organizations

UC Santa Barbara IEEE I brought my enthusiasm for projects to the UCSB student branch of IEEE when I began advising them on starting student led projects like the ones at the UCSD campus. I worked with their executive committee and helped design a unique robotics project. They want to make instruments that play themselves! Currently the group is planning to finish a prototype to show case by the end of the year. Eta Kappa Nu (HKN) National Electrical Engineering Honor Society As founding father of the Kappa Psi chapter of HKN at the University of California, San Diego I am very supportive of this new organization. I regularly offer my advice and time to the current executive committee through discussion of possible events, programs and review over documents. *logos are registered trademarks of IEEE and HKN