I earned my PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. My blog is about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), professional leadership, and my experiences as a graduate student living in Pittsburgh, PA.
Last month, I attended a networking event. During the break, the organizers served snacks - some healthy, others not so much. I'm concerned about my heart health and body weight, so I naturally grabbed a small plate of broccoli. Big mistake on my part: after eating, my mouth felt full of broccoli pieces. Of course, I forgot to grab a bottle of water. I'm an introvert and am self aware of my
My dad passed away recently (Wednesday October 9, 2019). I'm writing this post in his honor. Without your guidance, I would not have grown up it to the person I am today. You served in the United States Navy during the Korean War (1955 - 57, technically after official end), you were a scout leader, a Freemason, and an amateur radio operator. I know you were proud of your time in the Navy
You've been in your profession for years if not decades. You could be an engineer, computer scientist, financial analyst, or so forth. Do you stay into your current role, or do you transition into leadership? Of course, by leadership I mean taking on a role with manager as its title. I purposely wrote transition into leadership not into management for a simple reason. I believe that professionals
As engineers, why do emotions matter? We develop cool products and get excited about awesome technologies like Deep Learning, blockchain, virtual reality. When we think about SciFi, we might think about Mr. Spock -- the emotion free Vulcan who knew how not to react. For those of us who aim to be like him, calm and logical, emotion seems like the enemy. However, we are not Vulcans, and we have
As an engineering leader, you need to manage processes and lead teams. The days when leaders thought "my people must do what I say" passed long ago. Now, leaders must think and act on this question: "How can I help my team succeed?" As a leader, you learn to operate with constraints. In an ideal world, you could provide your team with anything they need: software, highest performing multi-cored
As an individual contributor, you must not become complacent in your role. This applies whether you're an engineer, a manager, a scientist, or a financial specialist. You must stay vigilant during your job, so you do not become lax in completing your tasks. This becomes more important as you gain more responsibilities in your career. I share four concepts on how you stay active in your current
We live in a society that rewards outgoing people. In her TED Talk "The Power of Introverts," Susan Cain notes this was not always the case, as the drive towards rewarding extroverts began in the twentieth century with the rise of big business. Outgoing people, namely extroverts, get rewarded for their actions. Our society looks for people who are willing to take charge. To paraphrase Cain, even
Engineers enjoy working on cool projects. We're nerds and proud of it. It is one thing to work on a hobby project such as home automation with a Raspberry Pi single board computer (SBD) or developing custom Alexa Skills. Suppose you have an idea for a cool project where you work. How do you convince internal funding sources to fund your idea? Ultimately, you must write a project proposal. Before
Previously, I discussed why you should pursue stretch assignments to boost your career. Today, I discuss how you find stretch assignments to maximize your career boost. A recap: One takes on stretch assignments to learn new skills. Should you pursue any assignment for your career? Of course not. You take on rotations that allow you to drive your career towards a desirable direction. If you want
Do you feel stuck in your career? You can accelerate by taking on stretch assignments. Take on roles that challenge you. Look for career opportunities requiring skills you want to develop. The point is to get out of your comfort zone. If you have strong technical skills, look for opportunities that challenge you to develop soft leadership skills. You can think of these assignments as
Ohev Shalom of Bucks County announces with exuberance its third annual Pride Shabbat on Friday June 14th at 6 PM at our Synagogue located at 944 Second Street Pike in Richboro, PA. Please join us as we welcome LGBTQ Educator and Activist Jamie Joy for an engaging and interactive discussion on gender diversity, trans identity, and building an inclusive Jewish community. This year’s PRIDE Shabbat
Engineering students often learn all the technical details behind the engineering jobs we begin after graduation. Unfortunately, they rarely learn business aspects behind their roles in companies including marketing and sales. One aspect that students rarely learn is the importance of marketing oneself. The underlying key means understanding that companies exist to make money. Some companies make
I want to give. In life, it's the relationships that we form with each other that matter. We need to develop close relationships with other people. They could be our spouses, children, friends, or co-workers. We are not meant to sit alone in boxes isolated from the rest of the world. We often bury our heads in our phones or get sucked into video games or what not. It becomes easy to get
Recently, a contact on LinkedIn asked me how to transition into a cyber security role. Although i know little about cyber security, I gave advice that you can apply if you decide to change careers. Let's suppose that you decide to change fields within the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. How do you effectively drive your career in a different direction? You could
In a previous article, I wrote about my experiences developing my first Alexa skill. I will update you on the status of my skill submission. Following submission, the Amazon Alexa skills team failed my skill because it was missing a background image for the Amazon Alexa display. This was my own fault because I thought of adding the background images as an upgrade. In my mind, the Minimum
This is awesome technology: control a robot with your biceps. The system is called RoboRaise. According to the article, the system "enables human orchestrators to perform tasks with machines by moving their arm muscles." Imagine what you could do: Lift heavy boxes in a factory on the other side of the world Place construction materials on a high rise building from a remote area
You sense that cynicism grows inside you. Instead of trying to push it away and treat it as something to be avoided, you should accept it and see it as opportunities for improvement: of yourself and others. Your levels of cynicism will ebb and flow. When it reaches high tide, you must pay attention to it and be deliberate in using it for good. Of course, you need to bolster your emotional
Several months ago, my manager put me in charge of organizing a Critical Design Review or CDR. This was not just any CDR. During this CDR, high school students from five robotics teams that my company supports would visit us and present their designs to company managers and their school administrators. As you could imagine, the CDR involved much planning over a period of several months. Some
One aspect of being an effective leader is the ability to learn from your mistakes. You can think of mistakes as opportunities to improve yourself. The first step to learning from a mistake is to admit that you made a mistake. I’ve made many mistakes throughout my career. For example, I interned at Disney Research while earning my PhD. After completing my PhD, I interviewed for a post doctorate
Last year, I took on a rotational assignment in my company in a software engineering role. Although I'm currently in a new rotation as a Product Lead for one of my company's modeling and simulation software products, I've realized that I enjoy writing software. There exist many ways to write your own software and create products that you can sell to customers. I recently discovered the Alexa
It has been years since I've written on this blog. I graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with my PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineer (ECE) in 2014. I have been busy in the defense industry working as a Senior Systems Engineer. I am now in the second and final year of my company's Leadership Development Program (LDP). I have decided to start writing on this blog again this time with the
One of my roles as an ECE PhD candidate is to write and publish IEEE conference papers. If you've been accepted to an engineering PhD program, your advisor will expect you to publish conference papers on your research. Now, I've seen great conference papers that tell good stories, and I've seen papers that I've tossed aside because they have little merit because I can hardly make head or tails of
In this post, I will review Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design, Third Edition by Constantine A. Balanis. This book is a must have for engineers who want to learn the theory behind antenna design. This textbook assumes that the reader has a fundamental theory of electromagnetics and Maxwell's Equations. The book is aimed at graduate engineering students. However, senior level undergraduate
A graduate student teaching assistant has several responsibilities, and I previously wrote a post explaining how one can be an outstanding TA. Today, I want to explain the roles that the TA has behind the scenes before, during, and after the semester. Yes, it is important that the TA do well in front of the students, and the TA has responsibilities to help the professor as well. I have made a
One of my favorite places to visit (other than PNC Park) in Pittsburgh is the Cathedral of Learning. The Cathedral of Learning is a landmark building with the University of Pittsburgh. It is not an actual cathedral but is a real University building with classrooms and a great views from the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh floors. I've included a picture of this cool building below. It is the