 Good morning and welcome to the Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley postdoc career fair My name is Cecilia Fiora. I'm the senior manager at the visiting scholar and postdoc affairs office and one of the co-sponsors of this event It is my great pleasure to introduce UC Berkeley Associate Vice Chancellor for Research Dr. Linda Rugg We are delighted to have her give the opening remarks to kick off today's event Please join me in welcoming Dr. Rugg. Okay, I came up the wrong stairway Good morning everybody. It's good to see you this morning. I hope you've been having a good I hope you've been having a good and productive time meeting each other at this special event I wanted to thank you all for joining us today And from our postdocs and visiting researchers to our sponsors We extend our warmest welcome to the third and final day. So this is your last chance to get to know each other The Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and UC Berkeley postdoc career fair And this is a great partnership for us. So we're really happy that this could be worked out On behalf of the vice chancellor for research Dr. Yelik and myself and I wanted to just say that She's on vacation and if she were not on vacation She would definitely be here because she is she's been a longtime member of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and you see Berkeley So she comes from your communities on behalf of Kathy and myself. I want to thank and acknowledge all of you Who made this event a great success? The Berkeley Lab postdoc Association our partners at the career pathways program at the Berkeley Lab and Our visiting scholar and postdoc affairs team that Cecilia is heading up I wanted to thank all of you for your efforts in making this event happen Today we're here as you know to create connections for all of you between yourselves postdocs and visiting researchers and also With all of you and prospective employers who are seeking the best and brightest talent that Berkeley in the lab has to offer And they're gonna be over there We will first hear from a panel of guest speakers from across industries And then we're going to welcome postdocs and researchers all of you to explore the exhibit booths I think that they're over that way right the exhibit booths. Yeah To explore the exhibit booths to meet the representatives of industries and engage with the sponsors and their teams After that after you have a chance to tour the booths, then there's going to be a lunch break And after that there's going to be a speed networking segment, which should be a lot of fun And we hope also that you will join us at four o'clock for the reception with Continued networking and social engagement. So I'm going to be turning this over to Meg Rodriguez She's the program manager for the career pathways program from Lawrence Berkeley Lab I'm sorry from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and she is going to in her turn introduce the panel members I wish you all a very productive and enjoyable time today the last day of the fair Check one two. Okay. All right. Good morning. Welcome everyone. Happy Friday. Happy postdoc career fair We're so happy that you could join us in that you're here Hopefully you all got checked in you got your drink tickets because that's you know important Hopefully you also got your raffle tickets. There's bingo cards for raffle and So just wanted to make sure housekeeping wise if you have any questions throughout the event You can always visit us at the reception desk. So I'm a Rodriguez I'm the program manager for the career pathways office at Berkeley Lab So I managed the postdoc program and I'm excited to invite up with me Max Brummer He is from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab as well. He leads our lab industry networking connection He's gonna help moderate this panel with me. Yeah. Hello. Awesome. Okay, cool Yeah, so we're super excited to have a very distinguished industry panel today kind of from all over the place And they'll hopefully be talking about, you know, what it's like to pursue kind of science-based careers outside of the normal academic kind of setting so I'm just gonna call up our Speakers and just come up. I'm gonna keep the introduction super short Just so because we'll just ask them to talk about themselves But so first we have Ravi who's a distinguished engineer at IBM And then we have Kay Lee who's a senior scientist at galley And then also we have Jessica from Seppian Technologies who I guess was at Lawrence Berkeley Lab also So welcome and you guys may take your hot seats Yeah So the way this is gonna work is we have some preset questions that we're gonna ask the panel and then we're gonna open it up to you All and so we'll bring you the mic. So we are streaming this So if you can wait till the mic gets to you so you can ask the question so everyone can hear it. So Yeah, go ahead Yeah, for sure. So I guess the first question I'm just gonna walk over here so I can see you the first question that I had was, you know Could you just tell us briefly? You know your name what you do and kind of how you got there Just, you know two or three minutes sure I suppose I'll start. So I'm Jessica golden I'm a director of R&D at Seppian Technologies We are a battery materials company. We've been designing materials for lithium metal batteries for about seven years now We spun out of Berkeley National Lab where our CEO Pete Frischman and his postdoctoral advisor Brett Helms at the molecular foundry were working on lithium soul for batteries and they Figured You could use some really interesting polymer materials to mitigate some problems that we were seeing in lithium soul for batteries at the time and we kind of spun out at that right after that as a Platform materials company to use those same materials class polymers of intrinsic microperosity to mitigate a sort of an array of different problems across different battery Chemistries and it was about three years ago that we down selected to lithium metal The reason being that we felt we could have the largest impact on the shortest timeline in that kind of technology field And it's been up up from there Hi, I'm Kaylee Brandt I work for a galley which is a cellular agriculture startup that's based near Boston and The company is essentially aimed at taking plants completely out of the agricultural equation so we use D differentiated cells sort of like stem cells to directly grow products and we mainly focus right now on cotton So we're working on taking Cells from cotton plants and going straight to fiber So we're taking the fact that you have to use a ton of land space water or pesticides greenhouse gas emissions Trying to remove as much of those from the equation as possible, and we're pretty new but we're making strides And it's very exciting very cool, and then Robbie. Yeah. Hi. My name is Robbie. I graduated from Berkeley So it's always like coming back to where I started I've been in IBM systems making actually processes microprocessors for our high-end enterprise systems So currently I work at IBM research From Yorktown Heights, but our most of the facility is in Albany, New York where we have the cutting-edge next-generation devices that we are making and It's especially interesting times because just a few days back the Senate passed the chips act Which is going to infuse a lot of money into semiconductor research and development for US leadership, which has been The main thing that the focus of this particular legislation is so I'm excited to be here and We'll kick it off. Thanks. All right. Thank you so much So we're really excited to get to know you all more and more about your organization So I'm the first question kind of the elephant in the room if you will a lot of postdocs debate the pros and cons of remaining in a more academic setting so as PhDs who are now in industry What were the factors that led you towards this career path? And so we can just whoever wants to go first, but we'll we'll ask you to be the same so I'll go first so My PhD work took a total of seven years partly because of the lovely weather here in Berkeley and so at that time I came to the country thinking I would go into faculty which was My advisor was very direct and said look you probably need a couple of more years of good postdoc and Then by then it was I was adding up the whole thing It was going to take a lot more time Then I said, okay, I'll make a pivot change to industry because at that time They were looking for just like how the situation right now is for looking for a lot of people in the semiconductor industry and so I thought make a change and That's that worked out. It's the way it worked out So it's always a question that you have to internalize and see what what what how it leads you I had similar conflictions. I wanted to be a faculty member of faculty and then but I also wanted to have a lot of impact more quickly And I think it was time that that chose that made me choose to go to industry And it's not that you can't do great research in academia. It's just that the The teams that you can build around your research Allow you to have sort of spread your influence much more effectively So as a really great researcher, you can hire a good team to work with you and have Experts on different parts of the problem working to solve that problem with you So I I did a stint Actually trying to figure out which which path I really wanted to do at metronic diabetes in In LA and I worked for the research group there and I figured I really like this But there's a lot of red tape in a big company And so my my choice was really between going to academia were to go to a startup and I explore both I actually interviewed at Berkeley lab at Livermore lab and at sepion and sepion was just the right fit for me. I Tend to be in the minority in this one. I always knew I wanted to be an industry. I've I started in industry after I got my Bachelor's degree I got a job in an ag biotech company and just loved it fell in love with the company with the way it worked with The job everything but then I decided I wanted to become you know Someone who can actually make Decisions about where the science was going to go. So I wanted to go back to school So then I went and got my PhD in a public wheat breeding program So it was public industry and then just because I was doing some really awesome work with crisper I decided to stay on as a postdoc. So then I was in academia and I actually developed and taught a class So I've done all of the things, but I always knew I wanted to go back to industry and for me It was really a matter of knowing What sort of situation I thrive in I don't do well without hard deadlines and accountability I just kind of slack off and industry is very much like you have a deadline and they will know if you don't reach it And I actually really like that fast-paced sort of lifestyle and I just always knew industry was for me I guess yeah, thanks for reminding me of those deadlines that I'm sneaking up I think that the next question too is you know, everybody here is a postdoc So I think one of the big questions that I would think of is you know How how is kind of doing technical work different from doing a postdoc or you know being in a PhD program? So could you just kind of like describe kind of the the science aspects? What's different? What what stands out to you? What do you not like? At our company I think a lot of the people that come fresh from academia, which is most of our scientists Sort of have the mentality that they have to solve every part of the problem themselves And so the the the big change in thinking in working in an industry environment is that you you should understand the Expertise of your co-workers really well and then be able to rely on them and to trust their research and to delegate to them And so build teams around your project ideas get buy-in collaborate And you don't have to solve everything yourself The nice thing is we have a bit more spending money and a bit more flexibility than being purely grant funded so if there is something that's like a really interesting idea and And one of my team members can sort of sell sell me on the idea. It doesn't have to be a long-selling They can just come and talk to me about it I'll usually just say yeah go buy that So that's pretty nice Yeah, I think that's very true and also I would say one thing a lot of people coming straight from academia and industry Have a tendency to do is kind of try to Do the absolute best science to get the answer to that one question Which kind of goes into what you were saying that sometimes you're tasked with get this done it's not actually in your area of expertise and you have until this day to do it and you have to be really flexible and Work with what you have to get the best answer you can And I think Postdocs and academia have a tendency to be here's a project You have a long time to answer it as thoroughly as possible and make sure that you've looked at it from every angle But industries is more like you're gonna do this this week and next week you're gonna do that And it's completely different and you have to get it done Yeah, also you have to be willing to let your projects die Sometimes in an industry Yeah, you you find out that the things not gonna work as you thought it would and it doesn't matter how it works after that You just have to say okay. I have to find in a new project That that's a hard thing to learn but I think the perspective is more of an applied science to an engineering problem which has a Customer deliverable or a market-based deliverable, right? So it's important to think about Is this going to be used in the end product or is there a Place a home for it, right for where this particular technology goes Sometimes in research early research a lot of the ideas are just good ideas because you need to have that pipeline just like academia to research to Development to manufacturing that the pipeline is critical, but it's that's the way to kind of at least think about as You would see it's not all the work that you would do is going to be 100% perfect and exact there might be interesting problems But you got to move on you just have to make the pivot and just okay the business is okay good You need to good work just move on to the next thing because we want your inputs and brain cells here So that's that's the way I would think about it Thank you so You you spoke a little bit about how the research industry is like But how do you decide which ideas to pursue and what's the currency of your work? What a success look like in industry, right? So for us, it's an especially semiconductor Research and development. It's a pretty clear cadence in terms of there is a maybe in the last maybe five years or so they're not too much of a road map given out but the demand and In terms of what we need to develop is pretty clear if you everybody understands Moore's law with You get to X the number of transistors for every two three years And so you you got to do finer and finer dimensions So you know where you're headed and you've got to figure out. What is the right material choices? How do you innovate in order to get there? That's the most interesting part is Every couple of years the problem set becomes harder and you keep innovating so the currency is typically in terms of not necessarily how many publications you would do because Typically what happens is a lot of times if something is getting used in product. They never get published It's it's absolute secret just kept inside sometimes. They don't want to teach anybody at all. So For us the main currency is a patterns because that gets you licensing or Preventing other people from copying and the second part is whether it makes it into actual products And at the end of the day, can you get revenue recognition for it? So that's the two main thing that I can Such say, yeah, I think that currency is the same even all the way over and Yeah, exactly. Yeah agreed Mostly it's patent thing, but it also depends on I suppose the the business so Step beyond the battery company. There's a lot of different ways. You could be a battery company So you could be making components. You could be making cells. You could be making packs You could be making battery management systems Sepion is making components But in that process we have to make cells so we can prove our components work And so our sort of currency will cover sort of every aspect of proving that that technology really works for the market And that currency is really dictated by what the market is asking So we have to go to our customers who are the automotive companies that are making battery electric vehicles and ask What do you want to see and we have to ask them pretty frequently because this is an emerging technology And so their ideas about what they think they need are changing as as quickly as we're innovating And and especially with met multiple components coming together in a cell design Two years ago. Everyone was working on an MC and now LFP is a thing that people are really considering so You have to be flexible there and your currency might change and so it your currency will be dictated by your customer Yeah, cool. Yeah, it's Yeah, it's really interesting that there's kind of that like whatever Outsourcing of like the directions you're moving into your customers and then you have to kind of approach approach it from the other I guess the the next question would be like what is your actual day-to-day like so? So how much time do you spend still doing technical work like science versus like managing or bureaucracy or anything else Well, I'm at a startup so for me It varies week to week But I still even though I'm a senior scientist everyone so I'm spending a whole weekend in the lab, you know All day long some weeks. I'm doing managerial stuff some weeks I'm a part of the conversations with the other scientists Analyzing our experiments and figuring out the next steps and brainstorming so especially in a startup It's very very dependent on just Time of year. Are you close to the end of the quarter like what and what the company needs? And we wear a lot of hats all of us do all the way down to the RAs we do tons of different stuff We also I'm we're also a startup. So we're wearing a lot of hats and same Various week to week For the most part my responsibility is now are totally outside of the lab But every once in a while, I'm the only one that knows how to do a particular kind of experiment So I go in and I teach our RAs and scientists how to do it And I hope that they can get it the first time because I don't usually have enough time to repeat it and watch some do it again But yeah, for the most part, I think I spend a lot of time talking to customers talking to our CEO Trying to understand the landscape of the business environment and then trying to manage the team to adapt to the strategic goals of our company So that I get to play with the data I really love looking at the data. I look at it a lot, but in terms of sort of hands-on in the lab It's a lot less of that for me these days Yeah, so for me last maybe the couple of years. I haven't really done hands-on Experimentation but mostly my work is to work with engineers. I don't manage any people in IBM We have a very different Tracks where you can have a technical pure technical scientific based Track and there is a management barrier responsible for people management So I didn't I didn't it's awesome. It's a very solemn responsibility. I wasn't sure I could do that I could stick to my core strength, which is Technical insights a lot of times what I do day-to-day is work with most of the engineering team and It's looking at all the experiments or planning for what capability we would need two years from now or three years from now kind of Situation where you you need to do a little bit of planning and thinking so that's that's a lot of my Job right now, and I do a lot of working with young fresh engineers People like you like in a sense just finishing up PhDs or postdocs coming in Giving them direction in terms of where to where to aim where to focus Because a lot of times there's so many interesting problems, but what is useful for the business is always the underlying Emphasis right so that's that's a lot of what I do mostly Thank you to the panel and Ravi. I feel like you gave a good segue for this question So what setbacks have you or any of your mentees experienced in your career? And do you have any tips for overcoming them? Yeah, so In terms of setback, I'll give you a very interesting thing that could happen in a business in our industry I was working time frame 2015 I always was a hands-on engineering person So we had our own semiconductor facility and then that business the corporation decides to divest and divest is like giving away your whole the place where you worked and You think about it. It's like okay. You work 15 years 20 years doing something and suddenly the company says oops The business is getting too costly. We don't want to maintain any of these things too much of cash investment We're going to just get rid of it. So what you have to think about is It puts you in enormous amount of a reflection mode in terms of oops. So what what has happened to me now? What do I do? How do I retrain yourself and usually what happens is a lot of new opportunities kind of kick in and five years have gone by and suddenly there is a Semiconductor crisis and suddenly semiconductor industries red heart. So everybody wants Oh, can I license it from you kind of a situation? so sometimes there are rough times because business will make business decisions because of what it is and You just have to look at it in a positive angle and say what's going to be your Way of retuning or how do you repackage or relearn some of the things and manage yourself? So that's that's what I can say for me mind more like personal journey to where I am now I Didn't always know I wanted to do plant science or anything like that I graduated and wanted to go to grad school and applied an evolutionary ecology and got into nowhere and Instead of saying like well that means I'm a crafty scientist I just said okay that means that's not the path and then little setbacks like that and I think Especially, you know, we're all more advanced in our careers. We have our specialties But industry gives a really good opportunity for you to take what you've learned but also start down slightly new career paths It's really wide and I feel like that's kind of where academia narrows you down You really could only get a job in academia doing what you do now But industry you could do anything so I got to go to galley and work on a Crop that I've never worked on before but now I'm also learning how to be a manager and doing business side of things So I can now translate what I've learned here into a whole bunch of different things And I think that having those open opportunities and going with them and just following a path that feels good is actually I think the best advice I ever gotten that's worked out really well for me Yeah Yeah, I've been really fortunate to have great mentors and advisors who have helped me steer me on a clear path And I've also been very proactive about saying what I wanted. So I think my first meeting with my PI in grad school I told him that I wanted to graduate in four years with at least five papers and five patents And I graduated in four and a half years with five papers and like three patents, which was pretty good So but he made sure that I I like had the opportunities to to reach at least Near to what my goals were and then that set me up Really well when I was looking for for positions elsewhere I think we had a big setback at sepion which could have impacted me quite negatively, but ended up being really nice I was hired to work on aqueous materials development for as we were a subcontractor on a big department of energy grant and Are the prime contractor had been also exploring different kinds of batteries and part way through the grant realized They did not want to do this kind anymore so they divested from that part of their business and That meant that we very suddenly lost funding for the position that I was hired exclusively to work for So all the research that I had done for materials for aqueous batteries Was not going to be useful for a lithium ion and lithium metal batteries because those are organic electrolytes and polymers That work in organic don't really work in aqueous. You can't really switch them back and forth So I had to figure out just materials designed for a completely different platform But it let me flex my materials design skills and it brought me into a part of the company was Where I had a much bigger team to work with and it ended up actually sub yarns sort of deal siloed at that point And we had much more collaboration across groups and so it was better for me and better for our company Although it was scary at first cool Yeah, it's really interesting. I was especially thinking about Kaylee's comment about kind of the transition Anyway, I was thinking about kind of Kaylee's comment about this this transition out of PhD into post or from from the postdoc Into industry and so I mean everybody here's a postdoc and kind of interested. How do what are kind of the the That the tips you need to stand out Doing that transition what are kind of the pitfalls you see when postdocs come into your company? So maybe you can start with that I would say probably a pitfall is treating an interview for industry as if it was an interview for academia Being really focused on you know, how long it will take and you know I need three years to do this project as opposed to saying I'm adaptable. I can work quickly with deadlines, you know, I I Have a bunch of different skills We really don't want someone who is amazing at one thing and can do that one thing all the time We want someone who we can tell likes a challenge likes to learn new things and is willing to adapt Their work to what is needed as opposed to what we're used to which is How do you do the absolute best science for the entire project? Yeah, just show that you are you know what industry is and you're ready to be confronted with that I think it's a big thing Yeah, I think what Kaylee put it very nicely because I Can give you a very very good example So when I graduated there was certain materials which didn't exist in the industry So now 20 years down, it's completely obsolete so it happened in the in-between time when like when you're when you're coming out of your postdoc or a doctoral program it didn't exist and Five years 20 years from now it will be obsolete. So you will go through these transitions I think the most important thing is to be kind of nimble and Going for the full exact Science is interesting But at the end of the day there has to be an application for it or a use case for it Where a company or an enterprise can monetize and make money? So because it has to be the thought of it as a business so it's a slightly different mindset that you need to come in with and There are going to be a variety of opportunities just like as I said like when I was graduating I didn't even anticipate that I would work on something which now is completely obsolete So it will happen in the sense you will always work on very interesting problems, but you have to be nimble I think that's the main thing When I'm interviewing I think the main thing that I look for especially with someone coming out of academia is that they are Have a really good mentality towards working with other people And that when they talk about their research They're able to talk about how they worked with other people if I hear that they Worked sort of head down by themselves in the lab doing every aspect of the work by themselves That to my mind says oh this person's not gonna maybe you want to work with a team They might be afraid to engage with others and their projects are gonna drag out too long You get things done more efficiently when you're able to work well with others So that's the main thing that I actually look for in an interview Wonderful, thank you so the the NSF stated in 2020 that 73% of all R&Ds took place in industry What do you think this means for science and people doing research in industry? I Think it's the best time to come to industry to do Research work. I'll give you a very interesting example We have down in Albany An extreme UV litography, which is very similar to the advanced light source. It's a 13 point something nanometer Wavelength and it's used for patterning the cost of the particular tool is If you want to go buy it in the market 200 to 400 million dollars Intel has one we have one in Albany So so think about the amount of money and investment or for research and development in certain areas If it's cash hungry if it's if it's going to pull a lot of cash typically in Academia or other places may not have such deep pockets to go do what it takes to deliver something right so therefore I would think in terms of The especially with the current demands that's coming up in making so to say or bringing back Manufacturing or bringing back hard technology back to United States It's it's a great time to be in industry because industry will have the money to Invest and to start to further the science and engineering So I think that's that's an important consideration that you should think about Yeah, I agree there And I think you've heard us all say many times that there has to be a business case for the research projects that you Industry that's mostly true but it'll vary and the From company to company and so in my group by I tell people I want 80% of your ideas to be exploitative research so taking things you know and trying to make them better and 20% exploratory like give me your wildest ideas I don't care if you think it's going to work because those are the ones that are going to be Bring us really the breakthroughs in our understanding And so even within a group those sort of boundaries can change and within different industries or different companies they can change There's something I think good about more money and industry going into research, but Money has always guided research in academia. It's the grant agencies are determining Which projects get funded and that can be very challenging So it's good that there's a balance between what the grant and funding agencies are looking for and what the Sort of the market is looking for and you can I think you should go with what you're most Passionate about and figure out who's funding that is it the market or is it maybe the Department of Energy or The energy California Energy Commission and you can make your decision on where you'd like to do your research based on what specifically motivates you Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, if you're motivated by kind of the fundamental research questions that don't have a direct application Industry maybe isn't the way to go, but if you Are okay with doing discovery brand new things emerging tech or anything like that Industry can definitely satisfy that as well. Yeah Cool. Yeah, I think we'll just kind of keep on down on this like emerging trends kind of thing So it seems like both sepian and galley are very like sustainability focus So I'm kind of wondering what are the like emerging trends that you see in terms of like what people are looking for You know other questions would be like, you know, maybe how has how work gets done changed And then also lastly, you know, do you see like Economic headwinds with like the Fed raising interest rates and all of that stuff So just kind of broad any any other big trends I think we could talk about that for an hour Yeah, I guess The thing I've noticed a lot is a lot of startups, especially in the ag part of the ag space where It's really now becoming more about Not just making adjustments to the current system There's a lot of companies now trying to completely alter the system For example like cultured meat that is it just a massive shift You're not just trying to change the cows or change how they're fed or something like that You're actually just trying to completely alter the way we thought about it before And I think that's what I'm seeing in the ag space a lot is just people with crazy ideas that might work now that We have these technologies and capabilities to just completely shift how we've ever thought about agriculture and growing things before yeah yeah, and with emerging technologies I think there's an incentive for businesses to vertically integrate more than they have Traditionally in the United States. So for example in in batteries we're working on lithium metal batteries for EVs There's no known way to make a lithium metal battery or to test one even We're adapting things that we know from lithium ion But all of the different components of the cell are changing so quickly that it became very challenging for us to say Oh, we've designed this component to solve this problem But then this other component changed and now we needed to solve that too to even be able to Deliver a sample that was compelling to a customer. So we said alright. We were a component design, but now we do full stack design And we're looking at pack and battery management now It's just and and I'm seeing this that we've got some other battery folk out there that our friends We have batteries and brews all the local battery startups meet that we pre-covid so But yeah, that I think everybody is having this the same problem. It sounds like you guys do it in your industry, too Yeah, I think I'll give a slightly different perspective With the Russia takeover of Ukraine. There's a lot of geopolitical Issues that's popping up where There's not much of a manufacturing base in the United States and especially in semiconductor advanced semiconductor chips a lot of it gets manufactured in TSMC Taiwan and so you can imagine what the situation could be if Taiwan gets double gobbled up or gets into a war situation then Just the companies like Apple NVIDIA You can AMD multiple companies here in the Bay Area market cap close to maybe three four trillion dollars That could be at stake. So the whole economy could royal so the government is thinking about bringing back Manufacturing so Intel's trying to build up new fabs. We are doing and with an IBM the next generation research part of it So it's it's you've got to think through It there will always be these pushing what does the market demand where where are things headed and It's it's good situation to be in if you want to do a lot of applied science Because I think there will be a shift within the United States to start bringing back on shoring a lot of the capability and And it's it's going to happen suddenly that's think things just changed because of covert things changed because of the war and it's just bringing back a new focus to the government and even for the the Senate to pass the chips act which is for getting Semiconductor leadership because it fuels the whole economy right currently the semiconductor Market cap overall business is close to six hundred billion dollars and it's slated to grow to a trillion dollars by 2030 20 30 in that early 30 time frame. So that means That is going to be a lot of focus and it's the best time to be doing Applied science and engineering whether it is industry or academia. So yeah, yeah There's been a lot of government investment in batteries, too There was a bipartisan battery infrastructure and manufacturing bill that passed where the minimum grants they were providing were 50 million For pilot and a hundred million for manufacturing that that came out this year. There's another DOE grant for more Early-stage innovation that came out at the same time you can get both There's California is matching grants. So they're providing a supplementary funding They're providing their own funding. So the funding landscape for industry isn't only what the what sort of venture capitalists or if you're publicly traded What what the market generally wants? It's also It can also be driven by what the the government and the state and federal governments are interested in Awesome, thank you So we've been dealing with the COVID pandemic for over two years And we've all had to adapt the way that we work How has that changed the way that you all work? You know what changes are here to stay and what is the future of work look like for you all, right? So at least with an IBM we've always had quite a flexible work-life balance and we've we've we have teams across multiple different places. So we have if design teams in Austin and and different testing in parts of Canada or in in Burlington and most of the work which was around in Poughkeepsie and in New York. So we were always in diverse different places and therefore When COVID happened it was just a seamless transition to okay not going into work, but you're pretty much taking all the work-related stuff from home. So it was a seamless just managing within the family was kind of a little bit of a challenge, but I would say the work-wise I think things weren't went clockwork and we have Manufacturing of our advanced computer chips in Samsung. So Samsung worked continuously so nothing dropped and therefore there was no delays and we were able to bring out our systems at the same exact time that we had planned for. So it's a COVID actually opened up that okay people can now do flexible So now it's a reverse problem of okay maybe things are you have to live with COVID kind of a situation and trying to entice people into the workplace seems to be more of a Challenge and that's what people are at least companies are dealing with but they we've always been in this remote or accommodating remote employees mode and it was We didn't even drop a beat during COVID. So Yeah, I think for what I've noticed it's again It's COVID forced The infrastructure ability to have people work from home where before there were a lot of companies that were just like that's not an option Right. It wasn't even a part of their system and now I think everyone has allowed that that's an option and So partly that where you can be a little bit more flexible and then also I've noticed a nice kind of shift an attitude of If you're sick Don't come into work Before it was like, oh, I don't feel well, but I'm here and now everyone's like we don't want you here Don't come in and you can still work. So it's I think a little bit more Healthy for the person, you know, physically and mentally also. Yeah. Yeah, I think work life balance is improved since COVID At least in my company and we have a really flexible attitude towards work from home our computational chemist lives in Texas and I meet with him a couple times a week on On online and he does great work Sometimes he's on the computer remotely and then I'll I'll I'll be on it locally so I can point the arrow At something that I was the guy asking him about So yeah, it works I think just having that flexibility and and for me personally I prefer to read and write at home in my home office So that's where I do most of that work And then I go in when I want to be more collaborative and see my team and and have those like really exciting fun discussions across the Office where we're like, hey, did you see that data? What do you think that means? So yeah, the flexibility I think it's it's made our team is as tight as it ever was Cool. Cool. All right. Well, so this will be I guess the last question that the moderators do and then we'll Hand over the microphone. I guess that the last question that I would have is like what advice do you have for postdocs here either today? just for like the career fair or You know just in general like how do you have a successful career any words of wisdom? Yeah, I guess Don't be discouraged, but also I guess we're all we're all stem, right? Scientist an N of one is not significant So if you get a horrible feedback or rejection or you're just like there's an awful experience don't take it as Like that's me. It's my fault. I shouldn't do this Keep pursuing it if something isn't working out and you've been trying for a really long time be okay with trying something slightly Different and going slightly outside of your comfort zone because you'll get it eventually There is something out there for you and just try to really tailor any Interview any application any cover letter very specifically to what the job ad says and look up the company show that you care and Direct what you're saying in your interview to what they say they want and what their company goals are Because we notice that in an interview is if you've paid attention and if you're in line with what we're trying to do as a company Yeah, I try to hire people that I know will be motivated by the things that our mission our company has driven by a buyer mission so we want to mitigate climate change and We like doing science So I need to see that in the the person that I'm interviewing so know what motivates you and Try to apply I think be pretty flexible with where you apply and be willing to Be interviewing the company that you're Interviewing at it should be a two-way street. You should try to Get a feel for whether you would be happy with that research whether you would be happy in that culture And if if you would be like you'll feel that connection that click if you don't Then it might not be the right company for you. And so you're it might feel like your career is harder if you start there Yeah, I would I would just try to like know yourself and what you really want pretty well So what I would suggest is to be as flexible as possible because in industry typically a Particular problem set might be two years to four years five years kind of a timeline before it gets transferred over either to Development or research and then you can move on to new things So and I think the most important thing is you have core Specialty in a particular area you can always this is your best chance to actually pivot and learn or might do other things because at the end of the day, it's the ability to think and That was what my advisor told me Hey, you have to learn how to do things because coming back coming from originally from India We could solve things very well, but not really articulate how to do the Formulation of the question. I think that's where the most important thing is so it's it's your willingness to think apply be flexible and You can still get to do interesting research related problems like pretty much what you're doing right now, but more with a Product focus or a industry like application focus. That means you will at least When you look at it three years that you spent on something you can be able to tell somebody hey look I worked on this this is what I was able to help the broader community with or The the that's your that's your press that that's your contribution to science and technology. That's the way I would I would think about it So that there is value or purpose to the whole thing, right? So it's important Wonderful, so we're gonna open it up to you all the audience. So if you have a question, feel free to raise your hand We'll bring you the mic and then please Ask the question into the mic so that folks can hear you First question Hi, thank you very much for all the information that you have provided and say thank you guys for the questions as well A question that I have stems from the fact that we are a very diverse crowd So can you just so that we can relate to what we do and what you guys do? Can you be can you give a little bit more information on what you used to do when you were doing your phd? What area you were working on etc? Sure, I'll start. I was a chemist. I am a chemist I did molecular design for solar photovoltaics organic photovoltaics and organic light emitting diodes And I knew I wanted to work in clean energy. I figured there's a lot of ways to generate clean energy Cheaply but the problem with implementing that is that energy storage is not yet cheap So I decided I wanted to work on energy storage problems But I was a materials person and who's doing Materials designed for energy storage at the time It just didn't seem like there was a lot of opportunity lithium ion was such an established technology But I Interviewed around and I I was very fortunate to jump into the field at the right time and this is a hugely growing field So if it's something that you're interested in There is so much opportunity and I'm sure that's like the I mean what you guys are doing is so interesting That's also emerging a lot of our neighbors are in sort of like biomedical and bio Biotechnology and engineering and yeah the seeing those we see them down the street at the same taco trucks all the time Yeah So for me my PhD was in wheat breeding and genetics So I worked for a wheat breeding program. So all of the agriculture in the United States. There is a breeder or Multiple within that state that actually develops new varieties in collaboration with farmers and downstream producers and companies and They develop new varieties for that area that have certain characteristics that are needed and that Means that I worked in the field I harvested wheat in the summer and did like basic research on that and then also did work on mitigating climate change through Manipulating the genetics of the wheat that went out into the field And then I also worked on CRISPR editing of wheat and trying to do it completely Non-transgenically because there is no GMO wheat that is deregulated and most of the wheat where I worked in Oregon is shipped to Southeast Asia where there are some very strict anti GMO laws So all of our consumers said we want you to do this because CRISPR is really great And you can do wonderful new things, but it can't ever have been touched by transgenics So I was working on completely novel techniques to edit wheat without incorporating any foreign DNA and that Was what I did the whole time. I did a whole bunch of different things and It was really fun and now I work in cotton So doesn't always you don't always stick with the same thing forever But it gave me enough skills to translate to pretty much any ag biotech space. Yeah So my background was in material science my thesis was looking at ion exchange reactions for Silver with manganese oxides. It's which has like a open tunnels and you can it just locks up a lot of silver in nature So I thought maybe I'll crack it open by understanding it and it never worked. It just the silver stayed Insight too. Well, I did a little bit of Characterization work down at SSRL synchrotron lab at Stanford Then I said, hmm. This is not going anywhere. And as I said My advisor told me maybe a couple of more years of postdoc because I want to originally teach I had done I did invest it too much in terms of four years of TA work here on Berkeley campus And I had to do a pivot so I switched into Semiconductor at that time it was a research and development work in doing DRAM memory. So just like processors going Every couple of years you're you're going to the next node things are changing. So there was a lot of demand for that and 25 years later since I'm still doing Every multiple generations has started a DRAM moved into logic So I'm now doing a lot more device and cutting-edge semiconductor stuff And I had worked on completely different things and in my PhD work So the way I would bring it back home is I think a lot of the underlying Physics or the chemistry of material processing that part doesn't change So you can pretty much or whatever you have learned or you've done you can apply very well And there might be unique angles that you will bring in which not not too many of the folks just Doing actual industry work really get to see so it's like always a cross-pollination of ideas and that's where the best Research gets done in terms of something that Will push the boundary and maybe helps the company make the innovative product. That's that's what I would say They've both mentioned this but transferable skills your guys's main transferable skill by virtue of being here today Is your critical thinking? That is an incredibly valuable skill that not every Discipline or degree really confers, but that's something that you have to be able to do really well as a as a PhD And so don't yeah when you go to the interview Consider what you've learned but also and what your skills are but also consider how they might be like spread or grown over time There my cousin was an HR. She's a couple of generations older than me but she's HR from back in the comm days and She told gave me the advice which I think was extremely useful and said that Like this was also skewed for for gender here. She was giving me advice. I said, oh, I didn't think I was really Qualified for a specific role because it had a really big manufacturing component I hadn't built that large of a facility before and she was like you know how to do the work You are qualified so if you have four out of 15 qualifications figure out Exactly how your other skills might bleed into those other qualifications and then go to the interview thinking you can do the job Don't go to the interview and say, you know, I'm not sure I'm qualified to do that I've had candidates come and tell me that they don't think they're qualified and I'm on the other side of the table like I Don't believe you. I actually think you are I've seen your resume and seen what you can do Like I want I want you to believe in yourself Yeah Any other questions? Yeah, thank you for the very nice panel I have a question kind of about the flexibility in the roles that you can take so in academia Of course one of the problems we have is it's there's a lot of inertia to kind of keep being more and more expert in one thing And something that appeals to me and probably some other people here is being able to kind of evolve in your role as your interests Go forward in industry. So I would love to hear a bit more. I mean you guys addressed it some but At both the big companies and the startup companies How much flexibility do you feel is there to adapt in the roles that you can have and by that? I mean, you know that can mean coming in as an applied scientist on one Team and switching to say an adjacent team or it can mean coming in as an applied scientist and Deciding you want to be like a software engineer or you know working in more I'm you know deeper in the basement towards like fundamental research or like, you know longer term R&D So I'd love to hear your perspectives on that. Thanks Within at least IBM I for the longest time I was in the system side Which is more hardware and bringing out computers to enterprises and recently I made the switch to research doing Advanced work, which is probably five years before manufacturing gets to see it. So There is a lot of port you can actually go from within since the industry landscape keeps changing and A lot of it will keep changing evolving just because of how the business is going to go like maybe ten years back Just people were thinking about cloud and oh AWS was the first cloud provider or IBM was trying to get into the CIA government contract and didn't get it whatever because things will keep evolving and You need to re-learn Retool yourself almost I would give a rule of the maybe three years to four years time frame If you're doing the same thing for more than two to three years Then it's then it can it could get obsolete, right? So you don't want to get into a situation where things get obsolete so You could branch off doing if you're good at programming software stuff all the cloud offerings So within with an IBM at least that flexibility of moving around is you know is very high and people sometimes say hey You know what I want to do more customer relationship I want to be the on the business front talking to outside Companies somebody might say hey, I want to go do IP law or I want to help write patents and be an Patent agent or something because they typically look for a Science background or engineering background and then you you are licensed to write Patents and applications because sometimes it's faster to write in-house rather than send it to external counsel, right? So it's it's you have a little bit more flexibility when the company has a lot a larger company when it has multiple divisions doing various things and it's Great if people move around a little bit because then you bring in fresh perspective or at least best Lessons learned from other side. That's typically not easily transferred within large corporations It's really great because we don't We don't have Like you don't have a really solid structure where every position that they need it every time is already filled So there's a lot of points in time where Something needs to happen or we need to do something new or we have an idea and there's an opening There's no one there who actually like is in that role or has that expertise And there's a whole lot of room in what I tell all of our you know new hires is if you see something that you're interested in Go help do it tell them you want to do it and then go be the point person You know so you can learn all these new things that includes Just tagging along with someone who is an expert, but they're the only person at the company So they need help so you can learn Anything you want really because there's always a space opening where we need help So you can really kind of find what you like to do and then say all right Well, I want to be a part of this project definitely specifically. Please put me on it and you learn a lot of new things that way For professional growth and development in in industry I can vary there are some places where there's kind of internal secrecy even within the company So one group can't talk to another group about what they do If that's something that you you know you you want to be able to grow or branch out That might not be the right company for you, but for a company like mine or it sounds like both of yours There's a lot of opportunity to move laterally or even not move laterally but just gain new skills from a different field that you mentioned IP law and Sepion where we're sort of a design license and component manufacturer So IP was really important to us, and we didn't have internal specialty We had outside counsel and like you said it was a little bit slow So I started studying IP law during the pandemic because I had a lot more free time and that's what I do now it's really nice for managing an R&D team because I can Take everything that we innovate on and then make sure that we actually have sort of The the patents that give us the freedom to operate in that space. So, yeah IP is quite the quarantine hobby Yeah All right, we probably have room for two more questions. So if you do want to ask a question, we'll open it up Thank you very much. It's very nice to be here Yeah, I was going to ask the whether you Would you mind to share your experience for like your life transition between, you know Like because you used to be an academic life, you know, like the rhythm every day what you do and then How was it for you like when you start your job in the industry like how you change the rhythm and everything and like What was the obstacles and how you deal with that and how long it takes you to adjust and like, okay now? I'm settling up. Thank you Yeah, well when I was in academia, I lived in LA and was paid $27,000 a year so I mostly lived at the lab off of $5 bond means and I had pants in the lab like sweat pants because I'd get I'd be there for 12 or 13 hours a day and the comfiest shoes And I basically didn't see the light in the winter So I have much better work-life balance now and I can afford to live in the Bay Area Which is a place that I really wanted to live. So that's really nice Learning how to be comfortable with free time was actually an adjustment So I ended up getting a lot of hobbies so I wouldn't get depressed and lonely Which is a thing that also was compounded by the pandemic. I started surfing Climbing just finding other things to do. I do native gardening now Interestingly did a volunteer opportunity and met Met up with the other volunteers who all also had PhDs, which I was surprised by There was one that was a biochemist to biochemists and an electrical engineer PhD. So we're I guess that was like a nerdy Kind of volunteer thing. So yeah Finding something to do with your free time my my partner he I've been also training him to he just finished Residency and is now an attending physician. So Where he's learning to be a DJ? So I'll go I think Work-life balance is key So for me, I I'm always the most finicky one with the cooking So I used to go down to Berkeley Bowl get the right kind of thing right go to the right farmers market So at so at home I have to do the most precise. It has to be just to conform to my standard My wife was she could eat anything so So for me, it's I always had a hard deadline because I need to come back. It has to be fresh and That's the way I was I was trained, but I'm just doing the same thing even now. That is one aspect. The other aspect is There's a lot of times during School hour that is school hours. I've been to the local public school to do math Olympiads and I did that when my daughter was For very many years about five years or so or or are getting in the during the school time to go look at careers and science and STEM and And in terms of in terms of the give back. So I think it's just not for women but even for Overall, I think having that flexibility from the employer shows that the employer respects what you do and that's very important and And especially for women. It's a IBM's a great place to work So if anybody interested, I think they should really take a look not just for mothers they're saying for women and overall diversity of trying to find people from different countries cultures and that is very unique and Yeah, so I benefited a lot not just from doing science Olympiads, but even to go take care of Certain sessions for my son that I had to go deal with It used to happen at two o'clock in the afternoon So I would take my call and it's it's you know It's it's something that a balance that you have to work in and it's important that the employers recognize that different families might have different needs so it's it's Something that you have to always factor in when you choose your place of employment. I Think I had a slightly different experience, but it's not because of galley It's because I went from my last postdoc was at an R2 University where I was the only person working with plants and I lived eight minutes away from work to I now commute an hour and 15 minutes each way to galley And the day is way more busy. So my like Mental exhaustion went way up. But as I said, I actually really like that and I've again Galley's been great and it's been wonderful because I say okay. I live so far away I'm coming in earlier than what the like standard time is for the company so that I can leave early So that I can get home and cook dinner and see you know my family And so that I still I feel like that work-life balance is very important and definitely something to check out with the employers But yeah for me I got busier and actually spent more time at work than I did before but that's Really just because I drive so far and didn't want to move Thank you. So this will be the last question. So any Who would like to ask the? Last question now Thank you so much for this wonderful panel I really learned a lot from you all and I think we've learned a lot of all the way You've been coming from and so this question has to do with where you think you're going So in terms of you personally or the company itself within, you know The next five years or so. What are some of the what is your vision essentially? For moving forward and what are some of the things that you're doing to you know achieve those goals? I though again like individually or at the company itself. Thanks For galley specifically we're you know series a funded we're really new so hopefully in the next five years We'll have the series be and we'll be massively expanding and Creating a really structured business and I'm excited to be a part of you know that big expansion and structure and then personally I Am really just excited about learning new things because I'm finding passions and parts of the kind of science and science Adjacent pieces that I didn't necessarily know about before and so for me. I'm personally in the future I just want to keep exploring those things that I am finding a passion for and then developing that and moving into those roles within galley Yeah, I can go next so for the next five years in Semiconductor research and development so today as I said the chips act got passed But we are getting so many requests from government entities From other companies in the United States to kind of help license technology So in the next five years within the year we probably have to hire about 50 to 100 more people So that's immediate goal, and I'm not a hiring manager But I came because I thought this would be a great opportunity to talk to people just to see At least scientists to see look you can make a pivot and I've done that in the past It's important to make sure that you also feel that way That is number one the second thing is The the goal that at least I have is or at least within our Organization is we want to the advanced devices are pretty much consumed by very few companies like Apple or Companies that have access to TSMC and Samsung very few companies have access to leading-edge Semiconductor devices so we want to democratize that access and we want to have a platform So personally I would be responsible for in the next three years coming up with so to say nano-sheet based devices and having say companies startup companies or other people who can use that platform to build Semiconductor based innovations because it comes with a lower power and everything else Personally my the place where I am in my career my job mostly is to just make sure that we can deliver on what we need to And I want to get to grow the next generation of engineers. That's what I'm personally motivated to doing and Because that's that's the important part of give back that I can think of so it's with a business with a purpose To democratize access for all at least in the US ecosystem My personal mission and sepiaons are very much aligned which partly is why I chose it and also sort of partly We grew together. I've been there for four years and and we developed our mission while I was there But it's to mitigate the effects of climate change through the electrification of transportation So my main goal is to make sure that our technology makes improvements that we can sell to our customers That they really truly believe that that are safe that make batteries lower cost and longer lasting and that that Makes it easier for people to buy electric cars makes consumers more Ready to approach an electric car as their next car purchase That's it's very that's my only goal And I hope to be able to do that at sepion. We're series a now We're growing to Siri probably will be looking at a series B within the next 12 months And we're moving to a much larger facility. So it's a lot of like growth and learning new skills and Interestingly, you can read papers about R&D management So I've been reading papers about that to be better at that to make sure that I Move our company as as close as possible to that end goal Thank you Thank you so much to our panel for all of your insights and for sharing all of all of the wonderful things that you guys are doing Can everyone please join us in thanking the panel today? Awesome. So next we have the the company booths the exhibit booths are opening So you guys can start networking and having conversations with the companies and then we will be having lunch Served at 12 o'clock. So we invite you to come back for lunch We'll be doing raffles throughout the day So we'll probably do the one first one right Right before lunch. So make sure you hold on to your your tags We've got prizes different things and then three o'clock. We'll have our Speed networking and that'll be an opportunity for you to fill out your bingo card Once you do you'll it's different raffle with bigger prizes. So do participate you know benefits not only the prize, you know further your network and Four o'clock. We'll have our reception and there is drinks and you have drink tickets in the back of your back your badges, so Do let us know if you have any questions, but yeah, happy Networking. Thank you everyone