Professor
The Ohio State University College of Engineering
Please provide a summary of your job or research. What is an average day like? What are some duties performed?
Electrical Engineers use their knowledge of electricity and magnetism to invent all kinds of cool stuff from phones to satellites to medical machines. Computer engineers design and build all the parts of computer from memory to processors to the internet. I am an expert in photonics (using light to solve engineering problems, like lasers and fiber optics) and semiconductors (computer chips). One of my key inventions is an optical device that can make data centers use much less energy. It uses a computer chip that has thousands of microscopic moving mirrors on it.
What is your educational background and what prompted you to go this direction?
I got my BS (college degree) from Syracuse University in Electrical Engineering in the 1970’s (computer engineering hadn’t been invented yet). Then I worked in industry for about a decade, in fiber optics, flat-panel displays, and photodetectors. I didn’t feel challenged enough so then went to graduate school and got my MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Vermont. I’ve been a professor at Ohio State ever since, about 35 years now, teaching courses in circuits, semiconductors, optics, and even digital logic. I have invented about 20 patents’ worth of stuff. I went into engineering because I like math and science, and my parents didn’t tell me that girls didn’t usually go into engineering. I was pretty surprised my first day in class to be the only one.
What have you struggled with or overcome in your educational path or life path to get to this point?Â
My biggest problem was really shyness- took me a long time to overcome it. It might have been made more difficult because as the only female in most situations, I felt very conspicuous. And, I really wish someone had told me early on to learn how to network; it turns out everything is who you know.
What is the best part of your job/research?Â
Toss up! Between going in the lab and creating things, and teaching students. The very best is when you teach students, and then THEY go in the lab and invent things.
What is the worst part?
I am also the associate department chair for curriculum, which involves handling a lot of paperwork. It’s satisfying because I get stuff done for my department but it’s not as interesting as say, actual engineering.
What’s the most exciting part of your job?
Having a new idea!
What has changed about your profession in the past ten years?
The role of computers in everything we do. They are everywhere, even in your washing machine.
What do you think will change in the next ten?
Artificial intelligence will change everything- I think people will rely on it too much and only the engineers will know what is really going on.
