Navigate Your Way to a Career in Semiconductors @ Texas A&M, College Station

Name: Navigate Your Way to a Career in Semiconductors @ Texas A&M, College Station
Start: 2024-09-19T15:30:00-05:00
End: 2024-09-19T20:00:00-05:00

September 19 3:30 PM - 8:00 PM CDT

Are you a student eager to explore diverse career paths and cutting-edge technologies? Join us for an enlightening event focused on the dynamic world of semiconductors!

This event offers a unique opportunity for students to delve into the fascinating world of semiconductors, welcoming all levels of interest, knowledge, and expertise. Discover how this industry intersects with various fields of study, explore potential career pathways, and network with industry professionals. Don’t miss out on this chance to unlock your potential and shape the future of technology!

Agenda

3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Networking in the Atrium
4:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Non-Technical Panel Discussion
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM
Dinner and Networking
6:00 PM – 7:15 PM
Dinner and Technical Panel
7:15 PM – 8:00 PM
Final Opportunity for Networking

Networking in the Atrium

Non-Technical Panel Discussion

Dinner and Networking

Dinner and Technical Panel

Final Opportunity for Networking

Non-Technical Panel

Moderator

Cheryl Sekel

Chief of Staff/Director of Business Operations

AMD

Cheryl Sekel

Chief of Staff/Director of Business Operations
AMD

Cheryl Sekel is Chief of Staff to the AMD CTO, responsible for aligning and scaling CTO business operations and engineering business processes to support the company’s growth. In this role, she drives cross-functional executional excellence across all business and engineering functions by optimizing business processes, alignment, and collaboration throughout the company.

Cheryl has more than 25+ years in the high-tech industry experience spanning operations, business planning, marketing, and communications, including previous leadership roles at Dell and Alchemy Semiconductor.

She holds a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from Texas A&M University.

Panelists

Jacques
St-Laurent

Sr. Business Development Consultant, Academic Enablement & Workforce Development

Siemens

Jacques St-Laurent

Sr. Business Consultant – Academic Workforce Development
Siemens Digital Industries Software

Jacques brings 40+ years of industry knowledge and hands-on experience of which the past 25 as senior business consultant for Siemens Digital Industries Software. His intellectual capital spans multiple industries such as Aerospace, Automotive, and Consumer Goods as Program Manager and Educator.

In the fields of Electronics, Industrial design, Machinery, Energy, Process, and Medical, his accomplishments are reflected in consumer products purchased daily around the globe. His passion today is to mentor students interested in Sales and Marketing regardless of the industry they choose.

Nidhi
Chawla

Section Manager, Semiconductor Systems R&D

National Instruments

Nidhi Chawla

Section Manager, Semiconductor Systems R&D
National Instruments

Nidhi Chawla is a Senior Manager (Engineering and Technical Program Management) in the Semiconductor Business Unit (SEBU) at National Instruments (now Emerson). She has around 20 years of experience in Semiconductor,  Wireless and Space applications. Having spent most of her career in R&D divisions before moving to the Business Unit, Nidhi is passionate about innovation and technology. The last few years in the Business Unit grew her affinity to revenue, profits, and customers. The unique blend of her passions and skills makes her a successful leader at NI. She is also one of the few women leaders in SEBU and additionally leads the Community pillar for Women’s Employee Resource Group at NI. This makes her a strong supporter of Women empowerment and she is often seen supporting various related initiatives outside of work. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, cross country drives, reading motivational books and writing related blogs.

Nancy Nosratghazan

Senior HR Business Partner

Cadence

Nancy Nosratghazan

Senior HR Business Partner
Cadence Design Systems

Nancy is a Senior HR Business Partner at Cadence Design Systems, where she provides strategic HR support to senior leaders and employees globally. In addition to her role as an HRBP, She has developed several impactful training programs for employees and managers, focusing on leadership development and soft skills. Prior to joining Cadence, Nancy worked for companies like Apple, Google, and MGO, gaining diverse experience across HR functions.

Outside of work, Nancy enjoys exploring Austin cafes with her husband and two dogs. She is also dedicated to volunteering at high schools and universities, helping students prepare for their future careers.

Technical Panel

Moderator

Richa
Mishra

Technical Lead Manager, Infrastructure Hardware Analytics

Richa Mishra

Technical Lead Manager, Infrastructure Hardware Analytics
Meta

 Richa is a Technical Lead Manager at Meta, specializing in Infrastructure Hardware Analytics. She leads fleet telemetry development for AI platforms, focusing on power, thermal, and performance optimization. Her expertise lies in data-driven hardware and DC optimization for current demands, scalability for AI systems and the overall fleet, with an emphasis on real-time monitoring and benchmarking. Richa’s domain includes increasing efficiency through power management, thermal control, and capacity analysis, as well as telemetry standardization.

With a focus on enabling successful new product introductions, her domain areas include AI/ML applications for fault tolerance, reduce downtime, and enable telemetry at scale. Richa has published papers on simulation modeling, telemetry enablement, and hardware utilization effectiveness, and presented her work at CODIT 2024 conference, WISH 2023 conference, Open Compute Project 2022, and InterPACK conference 2022. Prior to Meta, she was a Senior Engineer in Hardware Data Science at Qualcomm, specializing in server hardware analytics. Richa holds a Master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from San Diego State University.

Panelists

Quentarius Moore

Technical Staff Software Development Engineer

AMD

Quentarius Moore

Technical Staff Software Development Engineer
AMD

Howdy! Nice to meet you face-to-face :). My name is Quentarius Moore. There are a lot of things that make me who I am, however, something I enjoy doing is being a software development engineer at AMD! I am in the Datacenter/High-Performance Computing GPU team, where I have been for 1 year now.

Graduated from Texas A&M Dec ’23 with my doctorate in chemistry so I still remember the feelings of being in your position trying to figure out career/life. I also completed an internship with my team at AMD during the Fall ’22 semester. You’re more than welcome to connect at this event or on LinkedIn for those with anxiety/nervousness.

Melissa Abraham

Senior Design Verification Engineer

Marvell

Melissa Abraham

Senior Design Verification Engineer
Marvell Technology

Melissa Abraham is a Senior Design Verification Engineer at Marvell Technology. After earning her Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Computer Science from the University of Vermont in 2021, she joined Marvell and has been contributing to the company for the past two years. Melissa has worked on various projects involving ASICs and SoCs, expanding her skills in UVM, System Verilog, C, Full Chip verification, and IP-level verification.

Melissa is passionate about continuous learning and advocating for women in STEM. She actively participates in recruitment events with GSA WLI and is a member of Women@Marvell, a group focused on connecting and supporting women across the company.

Aarthi
Ravi

ASIC Verification Engineer

Microchip

Aarthi RavI

ASIC Verification Engineer
Microchip

Aarthi Ravi is a design verification engineer at Microchip Technology.  She graduated from UC San Diego earning a Bachelor’s degree, majoring in Electrical Engineering. She has been with Microchip for just over two years and works on design and verification of mixed-signal ICs. She enjoys working with leading engineers in design, emulation, and test teams. When off work, Aarthi enjoys playing video games, reading epic fantasy, going to Hotworx, and watching anime.

Liana Nicklaus

Principal Applications Engineer

Arm

Liana Nicklaus

Principal System Architect
Arm

Liana Nicklaus is a Principal System Architect leading the development of guidelines for attaching AI accelerators to Arm Neoverse server systems.  She grew up in the Chiago suburbs and did her undergrad in Electrical & Computer Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), taking internships at Fermilab, Wolfram, IBM and Qualcomm along the way. After graduation, she started work at Arm in Austin, TX as part of a graduate rotation program, pursuing her M.S. in Computer Engineering at UT Austin part-time while she worked. After finishing her rotation program, Liana worked for several years as a system-on-chip (SoC) design engineer. She then moved into Applications Engineering, providing technical support and consulting for Arm customers for three years. This year, she started a new role as a System Architect, writing specifications that help Arm customers design systems that will work well with Arm components and industry standards. Outside of work, she is also mom to the sweetest little 2-year-old you will ever meet, and loves hiking, biking and baking with her husband and friends.