Monday, September 05, 2005
Thitima
Kicked out by Ahmad, saved by Dan
Thitima Suwannasiri was one of our Rutgers grad students from Thailand. She was tiny and had a high, squeaky voice, like Minny Mouse in old cartoon movies. Her Ph.D. advisor was Prof. A.S. (full name deleted, for privacy). He was a very tough and mean guy, from Iran, and two of his brothers were generals in the Iranian army. He and I got along OK, but we didn’t like each other. He thought I was too soft on the students (although I thought I was properly “encouraging” and inspiring to those “students!”). Prof. A.S. was famous in the Department for taking an immediate dislike to certain students and thereafter criticizing and hounding them.
One example was an undergrad part-time technician in his research group, Christian, who got criticized constantly. He eventually got fired from his job, and he then came to me, looking for a new job. I took him in, and he turned out to be very good. While visiting the Department later, his mother came up to me in the hallway, kissed me, and thanked me vociferously for “saving” her son, who she said had gotten seriously depressed while working for A.S., but who really perked up when he had gotten a fresh start with me. Eventually, when Chris got his B.E. degree, I got him a permanent job at Siemens. I saw in the science news that they were expanding their tuner operations, so I prepped him about that particular field of electronics (“surface acoustic wave” piezoelectric tuners for cell phones). He called them and asked for an interview. He had a good interview, and they hired him. Since then he has done very well and is quite happy there. (Chris recently gave me the world-traveler clock in the sunporch.)
Prof. A.S. couldn’t stand Thitima Suwannasiri’s high voice, and she got the hounding treatment, often ending up in tears. She eventually got kicked out of his research group. She came into my office, crying, and saying that she had been a famously outstanding student in Thailand. Her widowed mother had paid for the beginning of her grad studies, and now Thitima would have to go home in conspicuous disgrace --- could I please take her in? I was already pretty old and didn’t want any new students. However, I did have some extra research money and couldn’t bring myself to turn her away.
Thitima was a good student, and she learned from me how to be creative. Oak Ridge National Labs (ORNL) needed a consultant in tape casting, to solve a difficult problem in their thin film lithium battery program. The U.S. Government didn’t want the Japanese to dominate the field of lithium batteries, which were becoming so necessary for cellular phones and laptop computers. ORNL wanted to hire me as a consultant, to teach them tape casting and inhibit grain growth. I didn’t want any new consulting jobs, but Thitima had done her Ph.D. research in tape casting, so I got ORNL to hire her.
Thitima easily did the tape casting part, but she had to work hard to solve the grain growth problem. She created a new solution to the problem, and there is her picture on the next page (of my paper-version scrapbook). It’s quite an honor to have your picture in C&E News. I posted that page in the hallway at Rutgers and called the attention of Prof. A.S. to it when he was walking by. He just grunted.
Eight years later (in year 2006), "lithium ion batteries" became very important. But they started to spontaneously catch fire (in Apple computers, for example), and Sony had to have a huge recall and replacement effort. The big battery makers therefore switched to "thin film" lithium ion batteries, licensed from Oak Ridge National Labs (ORNL). This is now becoming one of the most important types of batteries in the world. Thitima's "grain growth inhibitor" is one of the key things that made it possible ( ! ) . I'm certainly proud to have been her advisor. (See "Thin-Film Lithium Battery," N.Y. Times, Sept. 6, page C7.)
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(Also see http://jackgotmurdered.blogspot.com for more stories.)
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To read about the author of this, search google for "shanefield" and then click on "CV" near the top.
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Thitima Suwannasiri was one of our Rutgers grad students from Thailand. She was tiny and had a high, squeaky voice, like Minny Mouse in old cartoon movies. Her Ph.D. advisor was Prof. A.S. (full name deleted, for privacy). He was a very tough and mean guy, from Iran, and two of his brothers were generals in the Iranian army. He and I got along OK, but we didn’t like each other. He thought I was too soft on the students (although I thought I was properly “encouraging” and inspiring to those “students!”). Prof. A.S. was famous in the Department for taking an immediate dislike to certain students and thereafter criticizing and hounding them.
One example was an undergrad part-time technician in his research group, Christian, who got criticized constantly. He eventually got fired from his job, and he then came to me, looking for a new job. I took him in, and he turned out to be very good. While visiting the Department later, his mother came up to me in the hallway, kissed me, and thanked me vociferously for “saving” her son, who she said had gotten seriously depressed while working for A.S., but who really perked up when he had gotten a fresh start with me. Eventually, when Chris got his B.E. degree, I got him a permanent job at Siemens. I saw in the science news that they were expanding their tuner operations, so I prepped him about that particular field of electronics (“surface acoustic wave” piezoelectric tuners for cell phones). He called them and asked for an interview. He had a good interview, and they hired him. Since then he has done very well and is quite happy there. (Chris recently gave me the world-traveler clock in the sunporch.)
Prof. A.S. couldn’t stand Thitima Suwannasiri’s high voice, and she got the hounding treatment, often ending up in tears. She eventually got kicked out of his research group. She came into my office, crying, and saying that she had been a famously outstanding student in Thailand. Her widowed mother had paid for the beginning of her grad studies, and now Thitima would have to go home in conspicuous disgrace --- could I please take her in? I was already pretty old and didn’t want any new students. However, I did have some extra research money and couldn’t bring myself to turn her away.
Thitima was a good student, and she learned from me how to be creative. Oak Ridge National Labs (ORNL) needed a consultant in tape casting, to solve a difficult problem in their thin film lithium battery program. The U.S. Government didn’t want the Japanese to dominate the field of lithium batteries, which were becoming so necessary for cellular phones and laptop computers. ORNL wanted to hire me as a consultant, to teach them tape casting and inhibit grain growth. I didn’t want any new consulting jobs, but Thitima had done her Ph.D. research in tape casting, so I got ORNL to hire her.
Thitima easily did the tape casting part, but she had to work hard to solve the grain growth problem. She created a new solution to the problem, and there is her picture on the next page (of my paper-version scrapbook). It’s quite an honor to have your picture in C&E News. I posted that page in the hallway at Rutgers and called the attention of Prof. A.S. to it when he was walking by. He just grunted.
Eight years later (in year 2006), "lithium ion batteries" became very important. But they started to spontaneously catch fire (in Apple computers, for example), and Sony had to have a huge recall and replacement effort. The big battery makers therefore switched to "thin film" lithium ion batteries, licensed from Oak Ridge National Labs (ORNL). This is now becoming one of the most important types of batteries in the world. Thitima's "grain growth inhibitor" is one of the key things that made it possible ( ! ) . I'm certainly proud to have been her advisor. (See "Thin-Film Lithium Battery," N.Y. Times, Sept. 6, page C7.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
(Also see http://jackgotmurdered.blogspot.com for more stories.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
To read about the author of this, search google for "shanefield" and then click on "CV" near the top.
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