Alumni Profiles

Dr. Mike Vasquez is a 3D Printing expert, specializing in pushing the boundaries of advanced 3D printing technology. After his degrees at MIT, he completed his PhD in Additive Manufacturing at Loughborough University. He has used his expertise to develop software that helps companies better integrate 3D Printing into their work and he has now founded a consulting company to advise companies on use of the technology.

Kharey uses Materials Science and Engineering to develop new technologies for energy storage. She was named to Bostinno's 25 under 25 in 2019.

Will Dickson's passion revolves around technology product development and innovation, built on a belief that with bespoke problem framing, resources, and coaching, anyone can solve big problems in the world. Dickson graduated from MIT with a degree in Materials Science & Engineering in 2014 and followed that with a Master of Engineering in 2015 from the University of California at Berkeley in the same field. He began his career at General Motors in 2015 as a steering simulation engineer at the Milford Proving Grounds, and quickly transitioned to an assistant program engineering manager for GM’ full-size pickup trucks. He received distinctions in engineering at GM, published a patent, and reinvented GM's recruiting efforts at MIT and universities. ​In 2017, Dickson helped architect and launch GM’s presence at MIT and in the Boston innovation ecosystem. Altogether, these efforts resulted in over $1 million dollars of new programs and partnerships. Now as a Principal at FedTech, Dickson leads the xTech Accelerator and strives to empower technical innovators across DoD, DOE, NASA, MITRE, and other organizations to be strong entrepreneurs.

Professor Haile is an MIT alumna (B.S. and PhD in course 3) with a joint faculty appointment at Northwestern University in the Materials Science and Engineering and Physics departments. Her research focuses on solid state ionic materials and electroceramics with applications to sustainable energy.

Shandon Hart (Course 3 MIT Ph.D. ’04) works as a senior scientist for Corning Inc.  Shandon is a co-inventor of successful products touching many lives, including a high-energy optical fiber commercialized for use in laser scalpels by Omniguide, Inc. (used in over 100,000 surgeries since launch), and recent versions of Corning® Gorilla® Glass used in millions of touch screen devices (Gorilla Glass SR+ and DX+).  Over the course of his career at Corning, 3M, and MIT, Shandon has been an inventor on 39 granted patents and 82 granted or pending patent applications in the United States.  He received his B.S. in Ceramic Engineering from Alfred University and his Ph.D. in Materials Science from MIT.  He says that some of the coolest things about his job are that he gets to work with great teams, be creative, pursue crazy ideas, and call himself an ‘inventor’.  Shandon and his wife Colleen have three amazing children and currently reside in Elmira, NY.

I work for a materials science company. The real reason why my job is cool? The entire company revolves around advancing materials science in a practical and profitable way. Over the past few years, I've had the opportunity to invent new coatings that stabilize polymers at high temperatures, develop test methods to predict garment performance in the field, and create a new market for insulative footwear. Most days are a combination of prototyping in the lab, leading a global, cross-specialized team, and diving deeper into why my product will make a real difference for the wearer.

Since graduating, Jennie's career path has taken her to Disney's Applied Science Group, where she worked as a materials scientist, and now to Foley & Lardner, where she is a patent engineer.

Jocelyn is based in Houston, TX as a Pipeline Integrity Advisor supporting ExxonMobil’s worldwide Upstream operations, and has held a variety of technical and leadership roles in the Materials and Corrosion field through her career.

So far Dan's career path took him from a Course 3 undergraduate degree to a Ph.D. in materials science to medical school. His interests are in health sciences and technology.

Brian Spatocco is currently Chief Technology Officer at Advanced Potash Technologies (APT). APT is an agtech startup out of the MIT labs of Professor Antoine Allanore that is attempting to disrupt the >$20bn potassium fertilizer market worldwide. In his role, Brian is responsible for the construction of APT's US R&D headquarters, the hiring and management of the technical research team, IP strategy, and global development partnerships. Prior to APT, Brian worked as a portfolio manager at In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the US Intelligence Community. In this role he focused on hardware and energy technologies and managed ~$30m in investments in 11 US-based startup companies. Brian currently lives in Cambridge where he remains active in community-based advocacy.

Will Dickson is the University Champion for iHub within General Motors (GM). iHub is the catalyst for transformational innovation at GM. iHub empowers and unleashes the creativity of GM employees through a combination of crowdsourcing and collaboration, incubating ideas from napkin sketches into experience demonstrators.

Heidi received the bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering summa cum laude from Virginia Tech and her Ph.D. in polymer engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her thesis investigated mixing and morphology development in miscible polymer blends. Heidi joined Dupont in the Teflon® fluoropolymer research group at Washington Works in Parkersburg, WV, where she spent almost 10 years developing products for the wire/cable and semiconductor markets. She relocated to Wilmington in 2012, initially joining the Polymer Processing and Characterization group in Central Research. While in CR&D, she worked on novel materials for ultra-low wear, improving the properties of Corian®, and solid-state refrigeration, as well as developing a four-day internal training class on polymer science. When CR&D was restructured, she transferred to Building and Construction, where she worked on scaling up the mixing process for a new Kevlar® polymer and commercializing a Corian® with improved scratch resistance. She has since moved into the Electronics and Imaging’s Emerging Technologies Group, where she is the technology team leader for the solid-state cooling program. She holds nine United States Patents and has been the recipient of three DC&F Technology Excellence Awards. She is also a frequent instructor for DuPont’s internal Polymer University curriculum.

I am a materials scientist working at a 3D printing company called Formlabs. I graduated in 2014 with a bachelors in mechanical engineering and a minor in materials science from MIT, but I was already in love with materials science, and have spent the last four years developing photopolymer formations. The coolest part of my job is being able to provide a user with a new material that allows them to do things in their work that they never thought possible. I spend my free time mentoring high school students in science fair projects, playing with my dog, and rock climbing.

Currently works in the Aerospace and Defense industry, while at MIT participated in UPOP.

Prior to starting grad school, JJ Hernandez worked as a Polymer Engineer at Formlabs, a 3D printing company. He mostly dealt with altering polymer chemistry to invent new 3d printing resins.

A true energy amplifier, Sam believes that temperature is undervalued & has near limitless potential to improve human well-being. Sam graduated from MIT in 2014 with a BS in Materials Science & Engineering, & a minor in Energy Studies. His previous experience includes modeling the structure of bone, research applications for solar thermal fuels, & building a biodiesel processor. He has been recognized as a Forbes 30 Under 30. Outside of EMBR, he volunteers with the MIT wrestling team and enjoys cooking, reading, cello, & writing.

Sema graduated from Prof. Silvija Gradecak's group and is currently working at LAM Research.

Kevin Gotrik holds a B.S. in Engineering Physics with Honors in Research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he worked on synchrotron studies of polymer thin films. During his undergraduate, he had the opportunity to research in Germany at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research and at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology. Afterwards, he obtained a Ph.D. in Materials Science from MIT in 2013, where he worked for Prof. Caroline Ross on annealing strategies for block copolymer thin films and on strategies for finely controlling nanoscale self-assembly with electron beam lithography. Kevin is currently working as a senior research engineer at 3M in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Has worked at both Veloxint and W.L. Gore and Associates since graduating.

My name is Bob Barsotti. I am a research manager at Arkema (and an MIT DMSE 2006 alum). I have found Arkema to be a very exciting and innovative place to work for the past 11 years. I would love the opportunity to talk to you more about my experience and see if it could be a good fit for you! Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need further info.

Kevin holds S.B and Ph.D. both from MIT. After graduation, he worked at Intel to transfer technology from development to high-volume manufacturing, and then at the startup company Sublimity which provides business services for high-tech companies. Currently Kevin is a member of Liberty Mutual's Corporate Strategy and Research group, which does strategy consulting and business research across Liberty's lines of business.

Ryan is currently the Director of Science and Technology at N12 Technologies, a Cambridge, MA startup that focuses on composite, lightweight materials. Ryan holds a Ph.D. from MIT and a B.S. from Penn State in materials science. Previously, he has worked in both technical and business roles at the Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy, the Harvard University Office of Technology Development, and the US Naval Research Laboratory.

Dr. Jack Salerno is Executive Vice President of Triton Systems Inc., a global product venturing and investment company. Prior to joining Triton, Jack was President, CEO, and Director of Agiltron Inc., a leading developer and manufacturer of optical and photonic components and systems for communications, sensing and instrumentation. Jack was a founding employee and Vice President of Kopin Corporation where he established one of the first compound semiconductor epitaxial wafer businesses, specializing in hetero-junction materials now used in nearly all mobile devices, and also pioneered micro-display technology. He has held executive roles in several start-up technology companies, including optical component manufacturers ColorLink (acquired by RealD) and NZ Applied Technologies (acquired by Corning). His current focus at Triton is to accelerate product commercialization by forming business ventures around new technologies developed and incubated by the company. Jack holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science from M.I.T. with a minor in Management, a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, and a B.A. in Physics and Mathematics from Ohio Wesleyan University. He is also the inventor on more than 30 U.S. patents.

In his current role, Sreeram leads a vibrant R&D organization to ever greater efficiency, productivity and market focus. Products developed under his leadership include SILVADUR™ Antimicrobial technology for fabrics, EVOQUE™ pre-composite polymer for paints, low-energy FILMTEC™ ECO Reverse Osmosis Elements for water purification, and BETAMATE™ structural adhesive for automotive applications, and have been recognized with many awards for innovation, including R&D 100 Awards, Edison Awards, and the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge. Prior to joining Dow, Sreeram served as the Global Technology Director and Chief Technology Officer for DuPont Electronic Technologies. He has also served as Vice President of Worldwide Technology for Cookson Electronics, and led the Electronic and Flat Display Program for Sarnoff Corporation. Sreeram holds more than 20 U.S.-issued patents and earned his Ph.D. from MIT’s Materials Science & Engineering Department, his master’s degree in Glass Science from Alfred University in New York, and his undergraduate degree from the ceramics engineering program from the Indian Institute of Technology – BHU in Varanasi, India.

Ardavan Oskooi is the Founder and CEO of Simpetus, a San Francisco-based startup with a mission to propel simulations to the forefront of research and development in electromagnetics. Simpetus is a reference to our vision for simulations being an impetus for new discoveries and technologies. Ardavan received his Sc.D. from MIT where he worked with Professors Steven G. Johnson and John D. Joannopoulos to develop MEEP (thesis: Computation & Design for Nanophotonics). Ardavan has published 13 first-author articles in peer-reviewed journals and the book Advances in FDTD Computational Electrodynamics: Photonics and Nanotechnology with Professors Allen Taflove of Northwestern University and Steven G. Johnson. He has a masters in Computation for Design and Optimization from MIT and completed his undergraduate studies, with honors, in Engineering Science at the University of Toronto. Prior to launching Simpetus, Ardavan worked as a postdoctoral researcher with Professors Susumu Noda at Kyoto University and Stephen R. Forrest at the University of Michigan on leveraging computational electromagnetics to push the frontier of optoelectronic device design.

Melissa Martinez ’01 is Vice President of New Product Development at ATI, a company that develops material solutions for challenging industries. ATI is a global manufacturer of technically advanced specialty materials and complex components. They serve global markets with highly diversified and specialized product offerings such as, aerospace and defense, oil & gas, chemical & hydrocarbon process industry, electrical energy, medical, and other industrial markets. ATI produces nickel-based alloys and superalloys, titanium alloys, specialty alloys, stainless steels, and zirconium and other related alloys in many mill product forms. They also are a leader in producing nickel-based alloy and titanium based alloy powders for use in next-generation jet engine forgings and 3D-printed products.