IEEE Photonics Student Chapter Seminar: “How to Prepare to be A Faculty”, Mercedeh Khajavikhan

CREOL Building,  Room102

Thursday, November 15, 2012 / 12-1pm  @ CREOL Building Room102, University of Central Florida  Address: 4000 Central Florida Blvd.   Orlando, FL 32816

Dr. Mercedeh Khajavikhan

Assistant Professor of Optics

The College of Optics & Photonics (CREOL), University of Central Florida

Abstract:

The majority of the students that enter graduate school, especially at the doctorate level, has thought about pursuing academic career at some point. No need to say; after graduation, only a few successfully launch their own group in academia. Graduate students, deeply involved in the scientific/technical aspects of their projects, are usually blind to many other aspects of the academic process and that creates confusion, uncertainty, and disappointment when it comes to applying for academic positions. In this talk, Mercedeh Khajavikhan, a new faculty at CREOL, shares her recent experiences in searching for faculty positions. She will pass on some of the advice that she received as well as some of her own experiences on how to prepare for academic jobs during the graduate school days, whether and where you should go for (a) postdoc(s), how to prepare your application, when and where to apply, and how to prepare for interviews.

Biography:

Mercedeh Khajavikhan received B.S. and M.S. in Electronics from Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2000 and 2003, respectively, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from University of Minnesota in 2009. Her Ph.D. dissertation was on coherent beam combining for high power laser applications. In 2009, she joined University of California in San Diego as a postdoctoral researcher where she worked on the design and development of nanolasers, plasmonic devices, and silicon photonics components and later on as a researcher on developing new techniques for low cost imaging systems. She joined CREOL (Collage of Optics and Photonics) at UCF in Fall 2012 as an assistant professor.

For More Information:

IEEE UCF Photonics Student Chapter: Jie Sun     sjie@creol.ucf.edu   407-970-5611