The Student Leadership Council has gathered a very strong set of panelists representing the various career trajectories, namely industry, academia, startups, and national labs. We have Dr. Derek Bassett from Tokyo Electron representing the industry career path, Dr. Maura Borrego from the UT Department of Mechanical Engineering representing academia, Dr. Meghali Chopra, founder of Sandbox Semiconductor (and former NASCENT graduate student) representing the startup track, and Dr. Randy Schunk from Sandia National Labs representing the national lab career path.
Panelist Bios
Industry: Dr. Derek Bassett – Tokyo Electron
Dr. Bassett received his PhD from UT Austin in Chemical Engineering. He is currently a principal research scientist at Tokyo Electron where his work involves modeling, designing experiments, and performing simulations in order to improve and optimize semiconductor production tools.
Academia: Dr. Maura Borrego – UT Austin Mechanical Engineering Department
Dr. Borrego received her PhD from Stanford University in Materials Science & Engineering. She is currently an associate professor for the Department of Mechanical Engineering where she specializes in engineering education research in topics such as how engineering instructors make decisions about their teaching, learning in graduate engineering research groups, interdisciplinary education, and teamwork.
Startup: Dr. Meghali Chopra – Sandbox Semiconductor
Dr. Chopra received her PhD from UT Austin in Chemical Engineering. She is the CEO of Sandbox Semiconductor, a company which aims to solve a bottleneck in semiconductor manufacturing: the long development cycles necessary to create new chips. The company’s software allows engineers to simulate nanotechnology manufacturing, reducing both the cost and number of iterations needed to scale up new chip designs.
National Labs: Dr. Randy Schunk – Sandia National Laboratories
Dr. Schunk received his PhD from the University of Minnesota in Chemical Engineering. He is currently a National Laboratory Professor with the Department of Chemical & Nuclear Engineering at the University of New Mexico, and the R&D manager of the Advanced Materials Laboratory at Sandia National Labs.