Executive Committee
The Executive Committee leads the activities of the IEEE San Francisco Bay Area Nanotechnology Council.
We look forward to meeting you in person at an upcoming event!
Links below connect to additional biographical information or contact information for the committee members.
Glenn Friedman, Chair
Glenn Friedman, 2018 Chair, previously served as Chair in 2015 and 2017.
He currently serves as 2018 Vice Chair of the IEEE Santa Clara Valley Section. In that capacity, he distilled many of SFBA Nano’s successful practices into training sessions which have been incorporated into IEEE SFBA Officers Training and shared with all of IEEE Region 6.
Glenn Friedman is currently the principal technologist and analyst at Gxtec Consulting, where he has created strategies for novel device manufacturing, consulted on materials, processing, foundry relationships, and startup operations.
He has completed 100 technical and commercial reviews of SBIR/STTR proposals for National Science Foundation in the areas of: new manufacturing technologies, electronics manufacturing, semiconductor manufacturing; semiconductors, emerging memory devices, integrated circuits, photovoltaics, batteries, MEMS integrated systems, optical & electronic materials, hi-tech medical applications, biomedical nanotechnology, and nano-instrumentation.
Glenn is a veteran of the silicon and compound semiconductor industries. He has held engineering and management positions in wafer fabs and in foundry services providers to the fabless semiconductor sector.
While holding wafer fab manager and engineering manager positions he has achieved radical yield and productivity improvements in both silicon and compound semiconductor wafer fabs.
Glenn Friedman’s commercial research and development activities have included phase change memories, interlevel dielectrics, and multilevel interconnects. His academic research focused on high temperature superconducting thin films, and phase change memory effects.
Glenn Friedman earned a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering – Applied Physics from the University of California at San Diego with thesis research into high temperature superconducting thin films and substrate barrier layers; while supervising the design and construction of two thin films research laboratories. He also earned a Master of Science in Physics at North Carolina State University where he performed thesis research into high-field transport and discovered phase change Ovonic switching effects in CdTe thin films. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Physics from North Carolina State University.
Don Gardner, Treasurer
Donald Gardner is an IEEE Fellow and a Principal Engineer at Intel. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. Donald is the inventor or co-inventor of 96 granted U.S. patents including for high-frequency voltage converters, embedded and electrochemical capacitors, and inductors using magnetic materials. He has published 160+ papers that have been cited by over 4,400 authors (h-index = 32). He has received five Best Paper and Poster awards and Intel’s highest technical award “For Fundamentally Changing Platform Power Delivery with Integrated Voltage Regulators and Magnetic Inductors on CMOS”. In addition, an award for the “World’s First Integrated Voltage Regulator” was bestowed for the idea of creating high-frequency integrated voltage regulators which was implemented by a team of brilliant designers in the “Haswell” fourth-generation Intel microprocessors which resulted in a 50~100% laptop battery life increase. He also invented embedded MIM capacitors that are in third and fourth generation Intel microprocessors. Don also developed integrated inductors with magnetic material that have the highest inductance density known. He invented new electrochemical capacitors for energy storage suitable for IoTs. He also conceived reflowed copper technology and used it to fabricate the first working chip with copper-based interconnections and also invented an Al alloy/Ti metallization for interconnections that was widely used by most microchip manufacturers. His current interests include energy storage devices, power delivery technology for future microprocessors, magnetic materials for inductors, new materials integration and nanostructure design.
Rajan Gangadharan, Vice Chair, Webmaster
Rajan is a highly accomplished researcher with expertise in semiconductor processing, biosensors and photovoltaics. He is currently working as Photolithography Engineer at Headway Technologies, Milpitas, California. He earned his doctoral degree in Bioengineering from Clemson University, South Carolina. His research work involved developing continuous monitoring electrochemical biosensors using enhanced nanomaterial interactions. His work from Robert Bosch LLc Palo Alto on electrochemical characterization of immunoassays has been patented. In his career, he has been mainly involved with new technology transfer to high volume manufacturing at First solar Inc and Formfactor Inc. His current work involves in photolithography process development and sustainability for hard drive head manufacturing
Lincoln Bourne, Publicity Chair and Journal club Organizer
Lincoln Bourne is a Senior Scientist/Engineer at IBM. He was hired to support the launch of Linear Tape Open, a new platform for magnetic data storage. Annual revenues grew from zero to $1+ Billion. He has helped move entire manufacturing plants across national boundaries, and has qualified new manufacturing facilities at IBM and at various suppliers. Awards include “Excellence in Global Execution”. His current role is to (1) transition new materials and processes into volume production; and (2) develop novel AFM-based metrology techniques for future generations of tape drives.
Before IBM, Lincoln joined two early-stage startups seeking to commercialize novel materials: Superconductor Technologies and Conductus. He contributed to a successful IPO for each by: making the first HTSC SQUID, developing HTSC receiver coils for magnetic resonance imaging, and establishing collaborations with companies such as Toshiba and Siemens. He raised and managed funding from: National Institutes of Health (Eye Institute; Heart Lung and Blood Institute; Center for Research Resources); US Army (Strategic Defense Command; Electronics Technology and Devices Laboratory); Air Force (Electronics Systems Division); and Office of Naval Research.
Lincoln has a PhD in Physics from UC Berkeley, where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow. He made the first YBCO samples in the Western US, and led the team that found the mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity to be fundamentally different from the phonon-mediated electron pairing of all previous superconductors. That work was described by Physics Today as “A tour de force, experimentally”
CHAIRPERSONS EMERITUS
Paul Brunemeier, Nick Massetti, Dhaval Brahmbhatt, Jack Berg, Allen Amaro, Nitin Parekh, Geetha Dholakia, Vasuda Bhatia
BOARD MEMBERS
Vasuda Bhatia, Former Chair (2019 – 2021)
Dr. Bhatia is a world-renowned Materials Scientist with over 20 years of experience in academia and industry. She works as Chief Scientist at Gaea Nanolabs, where she’s working on synthesis of nano-proteins in collaboration with the Molecular Foundry, a Nanoscience facility at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. She also serves as Adjunct Faculty at San Jose State University. Before joining Gaea Nanolabs, Dr. Bhatia was a professor at Amity Institute of Renewable and Alternative Energy at Amity University, India, where she established a program in advanced materials research for chemical, gas and bio sensors including nanomaterials, semiconducting polymers and materials for alternative energy. She earned her Doctoral degree from Texas A & M University in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Masters in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio. She received her undergraduate degree in Materials and Metallurgical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India. She has worked as a research scientist at Stellar Micro Devices in Austin, Texas; as visiting faculty at IIT Kanpur and as a research associate at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in Bangalore, India. Dr. Bhatia has been actively involved with the IEEE San Francisco Bay Area Nanotechnology Chapter for last several years, where she has been serving as the Chair since 2019. She is presently Regional Coordinator of Regions 1-7 for the Nanotechnology Council of IEEE.
Geetha Dholakia
Dr. Dholakia has worked in technology business development, forging NASA partnerships with state\federal entities and industry and created new business opportunities by enabling technology transfer of IP from NASA research portfolios to startups. She has provided technical evaluations of NASA research IP, helping with prioritization for patent applications. With the NASA SBIR Program, she worked in technical program management, assisting with time bound processes for solicitation development in accordance with decadal surveys, programmatic reviews and award selection and helped small business with commercialization. She has won several NASA achievement awards.
As a consultant, she has provided technical consulting services to a variety of projects in the areas of biomedical devices, nanotechnology and instrumentation for startups, midsize and Fortune 500 companies. This included prototyping and providing competitive IP and technology evaluations. She has taught graduate courses in EE at Santa Clara University and was the research advisor for five SJSU engineering graduate students.
She is an IEEE Senior member and has volunteered with IEEE SFBA Nanotechnology Council for more than a decade. She was a Chair (2013) and Vice-Chair (2012). Under her chairmanship, IEEE SFBA Nano Council won the IEEE Region 6 US wide “Outstanding Chapter” award in 2014. Region 6 has 228 IEEE Chapters in 12 States. It is the largest IEEE Region with 60,000 members. She has organized and chaired conferences in emerging nanotechnology fields – Nanotech Enabled Energy Generation (2009), Nanotech Consumer Applications (2011) and Quantum Computing (2020). She earned a Ph. D. in Physics from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and a M.Sc in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India.
K R S Murthy
Dr. Murthy is the CEO of Proton Equity Global. He is an expert in corporate governance, mergers, and acquisitions. He’s grown a variety of companies both organically and inorganically, including six African American-owned high-technology companies, one of which from $60M to $550M in revenue in only one year while attaining a $3.5B valuation and earning a listing in the Black Enterprise Magazine’s BE 100 list as the Fastest Growth and Largest Black Company. He’s advised the CEO of the largest Native American company, and similarly Hispanic, women-owned companies and their respective leadership. He has served on the Board of Directors of six IEEE Societies and Standards Board, including as President of the Silicon Valley Engineering Council, a council of 45 leading engineering and technology societies.
Additionally, he’s chaired numerous conferences, given keynote addresses, and shared the stage with global leaders in advanced technologies and sciences. Prior to working in corporate, he was an award-winning professor in six departments simultaneously.
Kris Verma
Dr. Verma is a veteran of the Semiconductor Industry with over 37 years experience in Semiconductor Devices, Fabrication, Factories buildings, R/D, Reliability plus 5 years in the Hard Disk Drive Industry , all in Silicon Valley, California. His expertise resides in CMOS processes, Devices, Wafer Manufacturing, VLSI CHIPS for HDD and R/D projects management in High Tech Industry. Presently, he is engaged as a Sr. Faculty member at California Polytechnic Institute training engineers through courses including: Solar Energy’s Opportunities and Challenges, Nano-Technology, and Smart Power Grid. He is also Program Director for CalPT’s Symposium on Solar Energy. He was awarded an IEEE Millennium medal winner in 2000 for his contributions including 20 published papers and chairing numerous IEEE meetings and conferences. He is also an Emeritus Chairperson of the IEEE SFBA Nanotechnology Council. In addition, he is also involved as an IEEE officer for Photovoltaic chapter start-up and SVEC Board Member. Dr. Verma was awarded an ISQED fellowship and Best Engineer Award from IEEE Santa Clara valley Section in 2008 and 2010 respectively. He earned his PhD in EE from University of Utah, Salt Lake City and MBA from Portland University, Oregon.
Jelena Sepa
Dr. Sepa is part of the CTO organization at EMD Performance Materials (a business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany), where she is responsible for developing detailed semiconductor & display technology roadmaps, focusing on emerging market and technology trends and their implications for the business. Previously, Dr. Sepa was Director of Partnerships and Scouting, responsible for driving external innovation by identifying novel technologies and investment opportunities and by initiating collaborations and partnerships with local startup companies and universities. Prior to joining EMD, Dr. Sepa was a Director at Cambrios Technologies Corporation, responsible for developing and scaling up silver nanowire synthesis and purification for five product generations with applications in touch-panel and display markets. Dr. Sepa also worked as Principal Engineer at Honeywell Electronic Materials where she was responsible for developing and commercializing a range of spin on dielectric and barrier materials for semiconductor industry. She completed her Postdoctoral Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA and her B.S. in Chemical Engineering at Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Sepa’s graduate and postgraduate studies have been focused on studying zeolites and mesoporous materials and her career interests since, have been around nanomaterials and their use in electronic industry applications.
Eric Meshot
Dr. Eric Meshot was recently invited to join the Executive Committee in 2021. He is a group leader in the Materials Engineering Division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) where he leads research at the nexus of nanomaterial synthesis, fabrication, and advanced characterization. Eric’s R&D portfolio is geared toward advanced applications of nanostructured materials for sensing, energy storage, optical metamaterials, and mechanical reinforcement in composites, resulting in more than 40 journal publications and 6 patents awarded or pending. His impact on carbon nanotube synthesis science pushes fundamental understanding toward their practical manufacture over the past decade. Early mechanistic discoveries made with other nanocarbon leaders are now widely accepted, ubiquitously reported, and translated into patented synthesis technology. He is a former Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF) Fellow at IMEC in Belgium (2012), received the ACS Editor’s Choice distinction for a co-authored critical nanomaterial review article (2018), was the co-recipient of the Director’s Award for Science and Technology Excellence at LLNL (2018), and has otherwise been multiply awarded for his scientific presentations and publications. He has a sustained track record mentoring early-career scientists through renowned programs including the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) and the DOE Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) Fellowship Program. In other service roles Eric was elected to the Advanced Light Source (ALS) Users’ Executive Committee in 2021, has been a proposal review panelist for the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) and reviewer for the IEEE International Conference on Nanotechnology (IEEE NANO), and was an invited participant in multiple DOE large-scale user facility strategic reviews. He received the B.S. degree in engineering physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 2007 (Go Bears!). He earned M.S.E degrees in both materials science and engineering and mechanical engineering before obtaining a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering in 2012 – all from the University of Michigan (Go Blue!).
VOLUNTEERS:
Shannon Fiume, Webmaster 2024
Catherine Tran, Webmaster 2016 – 2020
ADVISORS
Folarin Erogbogbo
San Jose State University, Chair, Silicon Valley Innovation Camp
Upon receiving his B.S in Chemical Engineering, Prof. Erogbogbo stayed on as an National Science Foundation IGERT Fellow to pursue a graduate degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering at University at Buffalo (SUNY) with Professor Mark Swihart. He then moved to the Institute for Lasers Photonics and Biophotonics and served as a Ford Fellow with Professor Paras N. Prasad. He has published multiple high impact peer reviewed articles on nanoplatforms for biomedical applications. He has won numerous awards for his research and mentoring work. Professor Erogbogbo joined the SJSU faculty in the summer of 2013 as an Assistant Professor in the Biomedical, Chemical and Materials Engineering Department. His work focuses on medical devices and nanotechnology.
Glenn Ning Ge
Dr. Glenn Ning Ge is the CEO and co-founder of a leading Silicon Valley startup, TetraMem.
With a decade of experience in the semiconductor sector, he has contributed to numerous product innovations. He boasts around 800 global patent filings, stemming from over 300 US/PCT patent families, many of which are now in mass production.
Dr. Ge holds three Master’s degrees, including an MBA from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
He is a former Treasurer and Executive Committee Member of the IEEE SFBA Nanotechnology Council.
Roland Lee
Dr. Roland Lee is a nanotechnology expert with over fifteen years of experience in developing nanomaterial-enabled products. He received his BSE and PhD in materials science and engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, after which he post-doc’ed at ONERA (the French National Aerospace Office), whereupon he returned to the United States to work at Carbon Nanotechnologies, Inc., the carbon nanotube company founded by the late Dr. Richard Smalley, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Since then, Roland has worked for a number of start-up companies focused on commercializing graphene- or carbon nanotube- enabled products, the most recent being Graphene Technologies, Inc., where he served as the Vice-President of Research and Development. Roland is currently working as an independent consultant in nanotechnology, where his work is focused on the synthesis, processing, and characterization of nanomaterials.
Nick Massetti
Mr. Massetti has over 40 years of industry experience spanning multiple applications of integrated circuit device and fabrication technology. He has recently retired from the position of Sr. Technology and IP Coordinator for image sensor manufacturer OmniVision Technologies. Prior to that he directed technology related assessments of intellectual property for IPValue Management. He mined and evaluated the patent portfolios of Fortune 500 high-tech companies. He previously served as Senior Director, VLSI Manufacturing Technology, for HDD industry leader Seagate Technology where he ensured mass market commercialization of state-of-the art IC fabrication technology. Prior to that, he was Director of Technology Development & Quality Systems at Texas Instruments. There he developed and applied high speed analog BiCMOS manufacturing technologies to products used in high capacity storage systems, wireless communication components, and PC processor interfaces. Earlier in his career he developed CMOS logic and non-volatile memory technologies, and managed pilot fabrication lines at NCR Microelectronics and Philips Semiconductors. In his initial career assignment at Hughes Aircraft he fabricated a space qualified image sensor subsequently used for Earth Resources imaging on the Landsat IV Satellite. He has been active in promoting nanotechnology by organizing forums and speaking on the subject. He has published related on-line articles. Since 2005 he has held multiple Chapter officer positions for the San Francisco Bay Area IEEE Nanotechnology Council Chapter. As an NSF peer reviewer he continues to support investments in small high tech businesses. Mr. Massetti holds a Master of Science degree in Applied Solid State Physics from the University of California, San Diego. He also earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Physics at St. Mary’s College of California
Ira Feldman
Mr. Feldman is the principal consultant at Feldman Engineering Corp., where he manages and develops unique high technology solutions and business strategies. As a successful executive, he has proven his leadership ability to resolve product management and engineering challenges within organizations as well as with their supply chain and customers. Mr. Feldman’s broad knowledge and management experience with high volume manufacturing of complex technology products is the result of his extensive expertise in the semiconductor test and computer test industries. As Vice President of Business Development for Microfabrica, he identified and successfully brought to market many new applications for their EFAB technology (which is a breakthrough platform that enables the creation of sub-millimeter, 3D, fully-assembled micro-machines and precision parts of unprecedented scale and performance). Previously, at the probe card manufacturer NanoNexus, he was the Director of Products and Applications and the Director of Design Engineering. He managed a global team of engineers at Agilent Technologies (now Verigy/Advantest) that integrated Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) into end customers’ high volume manufacturing facilities prior to that. At Hewlett-Packard, at the star of his career, he drove the successful manufacturing introduction and ramp up of several generations of high-end mini-computers. He earned both a BS in Engineering and a Master of Engineering degree from Harvey Mudd College. And he publishes his “High Technology Business Development” blog which often covers nanotechnology, MEMS, semiconductor, and test topics.
Jeongwon Park
Dr. Park is senior research scientist in the Advanced Technologies Group, Office of the CTO Group, at Applied Materials, USA. He is an adjunct professor in the department of electrical engineering at Santa Clara University. He received a PhD from the University of California, San Diego in Materials Science and Engineering in 2008. His expertise is in nano-materials including CNT and graphene, nano-electronics, III-V semiconductor and Silicon Integrated Circuit processing coupled with a strong background in design and test. In addition to the industrial affiliations, he is currently involved with a close collaboration program with Stanford EE faculty members (Profs. Saraswat, Nishi, Phillip Wong, etc), MIT and UC Berkeley though his position at Applied Materials. His teaching efforts at Santa Clara include graduate level coursework on: “Fundamentals of Semiconductor Physics”, “Nanoelectronics”, “Nanotechnology”, “Nanomaterials”, etc in the Electrical Engineering Department at Santa Clara University. During his PhD, he focused on nanoelectronics with carbon nanotubes and organic field effect transistors including fabrication within a clean room, experience with CMOS, MEMS, packaging, device processing/measurements, simulations and modeling tools. These supplemental areas of focus and his continued interest and study of epitaxial Si, SiGe, III-V cleaning, Carbon Nanotube, Graphene, and similar materials have been on-going in parallel with his professional career. He has been a guest researcher at NASA Ames Research Center, Lawrence Berkeley National Labs(LBNL), and Sun Microsystems, in addition to his work at UCSD, Hanyang University, Institute for Advanced Engineering, and Seoul National University in Korea. He has published more than twenty papers.
Jianhua (Joshua) Yang
Dr. Yang is Principal Research Scientist at HP Labs, leading the ReRAM (Memristor) device study effort. His current research interest is Nanoelectronics and Nanoionics, especially for memory and computing applications, where he authored and co-authored over 100 papers in academic journals and international conferences, and holds 15 granted and over 60 pending US Patents. In the last 3 years, he has been invited to international conferences or universities to give over 20 keynote speeches, invited talks, or seminars. He recently guest-edited two journal special issues on Non-volatile Memory technologies for Nanotechnology and Applied Physics A, respectively. He also serves as a co-editor of Applied Physics A. He obtained his PhD from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in Material Science Program in 2006 and joined HP at that time.
Ranjeet Pancholy
Dr. Pancholy is a Semiconductor Technology Expert with over 30 years of Advanced Technology Research and Development, Fabless Manufacturing, and Cost Optimization experiences for ASIC/SOC, Nanotechnology and Renewable Energy fields. He is currently a Consultant for Global clients for Industry, Operations, Management and Manufacturing of Semiconductor and Renewable Energy Products. Previously, Dr. Pancholy worked at large Multinational Semiconductor companies like Qualcomm Technologies, Seagate Technology, Cypress Semiconductors, Rockwell International and Hughes Aircraft Company in Research, Engineering, and Management Capacities managing over $4B per year production of ASICs/ SOCs/MEMs and mobile chipsets. Dr. Pancholy has 5 US and International Patents and over 30 Publications in International Journals and Conferences. He has been an editor of IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Consultant and United Nations UNDP Advisor to Government of India for SCL Chandigarh Fab, Executive Committee member Conference Organizer and Chairman of several IEEE conferences on Electron Devices, Nanotechnology, Reliability Physics and Nuclear Radiation Effects. He received his PhD. Degree in Electrical Engineering from University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, a MSEE from Oklahoma State University, Stillwater Oklahoma and M.Sc. and B.Sc. Physics degrees from the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, India. He is member of executive Committee of San Francisco Bay Area Nanotechnology Council and currently involved with new advanced micro wind and micro power renewable energy devices.
John Paul Strachan
Dr. Strachan is a researcher at Hewlett-Packard Labs. He received his BS in physics and PhD in applied physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001 and Stanford University in 2007, respectively. He has published 24 peer-reviewed papers and holds 6 patents, with more than 30 pending. He currently develops next-generation memories and computational devices at HP. Previously, he has researched nanomagnetic devices for non-volatile memory, and nutrient sensors for precision agriculture with Solum, Inc., which he helped co-found. His interests include nanoelectronics, sensors, novel computational schemes, and generally finding new ways to understand and exploit material, structural, and electronic properties at the nanoscale.