Materials Science Engineering Seminar

Speaker:  Nicholas C.M. Fuller, Ph.D., IBM Research Division

Title:  Career Navigation: What are the Signals to which One Should Pay Attention?

Abstract:  Society has born witness to a plethora of benefits from six decades of advancement in science and technology fueled in part by the 1960s space race. Representative examples of this include: (i) Moore's Law, establishing the foundation and driving the ubiquitous nature of all computing omnipresent in enterprises and our personal lives alike; (ii) Metcalf's law, characterizing a digitally connected world and lastly (iii) advancement in software programming models, computing runtimes and virtualization technologies all of which have given rise to cloud computing becoming mainstream. More recently, we have witnessed major progress in specific computing accelerators (graphical processing units in particular) and deep learning giving rise to major progress in the emerged computer science paradigm of artificial intelligence (Al). The combined benefit of these are no more vivid to society as they are today in a world severely afflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic wherein distance learning, video-conferencing, and e-commerce through shared economy platforms are all made commonplace. From an enterprise point of view, the rapid growth of cloud and Al have accelerated companies use of technology for communications, supply chain and automation of the management of their mission critical applications.

In this talk, I will share how I have participated in some of these technological advancements during the past 20 years. Initially as a physicist specializing in probing the interactions of processing plasmas with novel materials and subsequently as a technologist delivering semiconductor processing technologies for the fabrication of advanced CMOS devices. As opportunities emerged and interests in other domains grew, I made the transition to software development for the emerging areas of cloud and Al. These transitions have culminated in my current role as an executive responsible for the delivery of Al - based technologies for the management of mission critical enterprise applications. The circumstances influencing the above career trajectory and other pointers for career navigation will also be discussed. 

Zoom Meeting ID: 953 7308 1627  

Passcode: 555444

https://umd.zoom.us/j/95373081627?pwd=WGYvNWpXWnY2aGs5c3ppWWVWbkdOdz09