Engineering Career Conversations Podcast

Title: Any Person, Any Study, Any Friend: Tony Chen ’12

Christa Downey: Welcome to the Engineering Career Conversations. I’m Christa Downey, Director of the Engineering Career Center at Cornell University.

Traci Nathans-Kelly: And I’m Traci Nathans-Kelly, Director of the Engineering Communications Program. We are excited to bring you this forum where we will host lively conversations that we hope will inspire you.

Christa: Today we are talking with Tony Chen, who has made it his mission to connect Cornell alumni with each other, with events of interests, to bring people together, to build community, to grow the Cornell connections. And we’re always promoting connections with students. Tony will share some nuggets on how to think about this as a systems approach, how to apply systems engineering to networking. So join us. Tony, we’re so glad to have you here today. This is a special edition of the Engineering Career Conversations. And you are working so hard on keeping Cornellians connected, inviting them to a thriving alumni network. And can you please tell us more about the Cornell global mixers and the continuous reunion efforts.

Tony Chen: Yeah. So the mixers are every two weeks on Saturday Evenings. We started during the pandemic. March 2020 the pandemic happened. And then there were many events. Like I was already involved in Cornell events before the pandemic, Like every week, we would go run 3 miles and have lunch together. We would go to the museum. We would watch a new sport every month. And it’s like we had a lot of events before the pandemic out in DC, and the pandemic happened and then they stopped. During the pandemic, I started doing the Zoom calls. So everybody gets to still see each other. So that’s been going on for four years now, 2020 to 2024, every two weeks. Like, maybe like 6,000-8,000 Cornellians have been through the mixers now. People come and make friends with each other, and they come back again and again, every two weeks to see each other again. People make friends. And then, like, you see a lot of life changes over time, too. Some Cornellians they lose their job. They find a job. In the course of those four years, some Cornellians start graduate degree school. And then a couple of years later, they finish their graduate degree school. You see the life cycles of Cornell throughout the Zoom call.

Christa: It sounds like you started this with your group that you were already networking with in DC, and you’ve expanded it. So it’s Cornellians anywhere, is that right?

Tony: The pandemic like isolated all of us. At the same time, brought us all of us together, too. The pandemic, I think if the pandemic didn’t happen, I would still run the events in DC. And it would only been DC people. But because like everybody around the world had a similar issue, we all expanded globally. It was Alumni Affairs and Development, they’re very helpful. May time around May or April. They had a wonderful event. They brought together all the different Cornell clubs, and then all the Cornell cubs shared what kind of things they were doing I was doing the crosswords, the NY Times Crossword every week with, like, ten, 20 Cornellians every week on Saturdays at 3:00 P.M. Eastern Time. So I talked a little bit about the crossword. And then I think Cornell Club, Boston talked a little bit about the events they’ve been organizing. Now I realized that everybody had the same issues. So I started organizing the mixers through that. All the clubs got to meet each other that way.

Christa: We need to get a link in our show notes to where people can learn about these mixers.

Tony: I’ll send it over to you. Yeah, it’s been the same link for, like, 3.5 years now.

Traci: And can you tell us then about the continuous reunions? How are they different?

Tony: Oh, gee. Yeah, I hope everybody goes to a reunion every year. No, not just every five years, not every ten years, but every year. The continuous reunion club. We’ve been coming to reunion every year since 1908. Yeah, I always tell people to go to reunion every year because it’s the best way to meet alumni. Everybody’s back in Ithaca. Nobody’s working, everybody gets to meet each other. And then it’s all very, like, informal ways of meeting each other. So people are much more likely to make friends with each other that way. But there’s so many events too.

Christa: Yeah, what are your favorite events at the reunion?

Tony: Oh, gee, it depends on the person. Like, if you’re a lawyer. You can get continued legal education credits, COE credits. There’s always like three COE credits you can get every time. If you’re in business, you got all the kinds of good business lectures there, too. They are like, AI in business this year, I think. I’m very excited about that one. And then if you’re in engineering. There’s like I always go to electrical engineering happy hour on Friday afternoons. And then I also always go to the AEP Engineering physics breakfast every Saturday morning. They have very good quiches every morning. And then last year was a new one, too. They have a graduate school one, too. For the longest time, the graduate students didn’t really have, like, a dorm to stay in or a place to go. Now, the graduate school has been doing so many more graduate school events, too. So if they only went to graduate school at Cornell, there’s still there’s a lot of events you can go to. They had a what’s a golf game called on the lawn?

Christa: Bocce ball?

Tony: Yeah, they had like a Bocce game, I think last year. And they also had a graduate engineering afternoon tea as well. That was a, well, they had a live band, too for that one. Was out in Upson Hall where they have a nice little patio out there. They had a little music band playing there, and the graduate students come back to. And then I wish everybody would come back to reunion every year. I love it.

Traci: Now, the other thing that you help everybody, a way you keep everybody connected is through the newsletter. And so it’s a newsletter for alumni, if I understand correctly. So what is the general, I’ll start with this. What is the general focus of that newsletter?

Tony: Oh, I try to connect Cornellians, in every possible way. True, very hard to find all the different ways to connect Cornelians with each other. So, the news has all the events happening around the world. All the Cornell events. I go through like 20 or 30 lists every week and just look for all the events because otherwise, it’s too hard for each individual Cornelian to look for every event. And then I get them onto one big list, that way everybody knows what events are happening. Cornell Tech has a lot of really good events in New York City. But if you didn’t go to Cornell Tech, you wouldn’t know about those events. Weill Cornell has so many good events, as well. And then if you didn’t go to Weill Cornell, you wouldn’t be knowing about those events either. The Cornell ILR Conference Center has a lot of events. All the different Cornell Clubs all around the world have different events. So there are a lot of people that don’t know about the events. So I put them all into one place. So that’s one way of connecting Cornellians. Another one is jobs. A lot of Cornellians are looking for jobs. Lot of Cornellians are looking to hire people, too. I see all those Cornellians posting jobs. I see all those Cornellians looking to looking for a job, but they don’t see each other’s posts because they’re not connected with each other. I see both sides. I try very hard to copy and paste all the jobs into one place so that the Cornellians looking for a job could see that list of all the jobs, and they could reach out to the Cornellians, looking to hire. That one worked pretty good. Last week, someone told me they found a job through it. Another person told me that he got an interview from it. They didn’t get the job, but he got interview from it. Yeah, it works out pretty good.

Christa: It just sounds like you’re really dedicating your time, all of your time, you know, it sounds like you’re dedicating this time of your life to supporting other Cornellians, connecting other Cornellians.

Tony: There’s 250,000 Cornellians. And Cornellians do all kinds of interesting things too. So I tried very hard to find all of those and then feature them. Now that way more Cornellians can know they can do all those interesting things too. Last month, Cornellian was running for US House, the House of Representatives. We went out to San Antonio for the campaign launching event. Then another Cornellian runs like a women’s art gallery in New York City. I was out to that. And then a couple other woman artists reached out to her through that. And we always do a variety of different things, all kinds of different things. Yeah, I wish more Cornellians would know about them.

Christa: Yeah, you’re a PR person for Cornellians. I love it. So what’s the greatest challenge you face in doing this work?

Tony: There’s so much Cornellians out there, and all the information is like everywhere. It’s like scattered everywhere. And then I try very hard to aggregate them into one place. There’s so much information everywhere. I think there’s just so much, I always say that there’s a lot of abundance in the Cornell community. Abundance. Whereas, the issue is a lot of Cornellians aren’t connected a lot of Cornellians. They don’t know about a lot of the events. There’s a feeling of scarcity. And scarcity is not good. It’s important to have a feeling of abundance. That we try for bigger things that we find a job within a week rather than a couple of months.

Christa: Tony, I love this perspective of abundance, and I feel that way about many things in life, as well, particularly with regard to networks and getting out there and making connections and, you know, meeting new people and all of that. And certainly, with regard to careers. I know so many students struggle when they’re not getting what they’re looking for. They’re struggling to make some connections. They’re struggling to find the internship that they’re looking for, the job that they’re hoping for. And how do we balance that? You know? What might you say to that student who’s really struggling to find what they’re looking for and how to see it from this perspective of abundance? Not only just see it, but how to act from a place of abundance, perhaps.

Tony: I didn’t meet the alumni when I was a student. I really wish I knew it earlier. I think there’s a lot of events, like very soon, where you could meet a alumni. For example, you can sign up to be a reunion clerk. And then you would be assigned a class, like a class of 1950, what year is this? 1954, or 1964. We’re in 1969, or 1974. You could be assigned of the classes, and you’re like, they’re a clerk for them. So you make sure that everybody signed in correctly. Everybody can find their housing correctly. And that is just such a good way to meet alumni. Because all the alumni talk to you. They’re so happy to be back and you’re so helpful to them. They’re all really, really happy to talk to you if have, like, career advice questions that you have. I think the thing that really clicked for me is when you see all those alumni, 50 years out of college, and they’re still such good friends with each other. I think that’s when I realized. I’ve got to make more Cornell friends. Because after 30, 40, 50 years, I’ll still be friends with them, and then it’s a wonderful friendship when it’s over the lifetime, and then you see them like we go through different jobs, go through different life cycles, their kids graduate from high school, and you just see a lot of different things over time. So I wish I was a reunion clerk. I think that’s one good way to tap in. And another way to tap into the feeling of abundance is go going to more Cornell events. There’s events all around the world right now. And then if you go anywhere in the world for the summer, there’s always going to be a Cornell event somewhere nearby. So I recommend you going to event events. I think like for example, if you’re in the DC, Maryland, Virginia area, there’s a very good crab feast coming up. I love the crab feast. They go to the beach. They have, hot dogs, they have crabs, they have beer, it’s a very wonderful event. And like 200-300 Cornellians go to that one. So yeah, that’s coming up, I think on June 23. That is an example of an event to go to. There’s also, like, Boston, for example, they have their annual meeting. The head of the Botanic Garden at Cornell is going to Boston to speak about the Botanic Gardens. New York City has so many events, too, throughout the whole summer. You should meet more Cornelians over the summer, too.

Traci: I love your perspective about the friends that you make in college, whether they’re alumni or they’re in your very same class. You know, they stay with you for forever if you’re lucky. That’s certainly the case for me. 35 years later, me and my first week, bestie we’re still hanging out all these years later. And I think that those are important connections for all of us to make. And so with all of this energy and this idea of abundance, I love this framework that you have, Tony. We wanted to ask you, too, about what do you see, what do you hear, in these conversations when all of these people are gathering together, about how Cornellians are changing the world for the better? How are they helping create a sustainable world, better world, in whatever way that might look? What are some, a story or two, that you’ve heard?

Tony: I really like Cornell’s motto, “Any person any study”. I think it’s really, really good. The world is like, very unfair. A lot depends on where you’re born, who you’re born to. Like, a lot of it depends on that. And education is a way to make the world a little bit more fair. So even if you’re not born, in one of wealthier areas, and even if you’re not born to wealthier parents, you can still come to Cornell. You can still come to Cornell, you’ll fit right in, and you’ll still be very successful afterwards. You can still pursue any career afterwards. I think that’s something that I admire a lot a lot about Cornell. I think that I think that you make the world a little bit fair. You’ll have a lot more ideas coming in on how to solve different problems, and then you can go out afterwards and solve those. I think one worry I have with “any person any study” is that sometimes in a lot of different things that you try to do, it’s not enough. Just studying a lot doesn’t get you very far in a lot of careers. You have to have the network, too. So to the point, just going to Cornell is not enough. You have to have the Cornell connections afterwards, too. So, any person, any study, any friend. It goes on after you graduate, you still make more friends. So like right after you graduate. You’re not done making Cornell friends yet. You can still make more Cornell friends. So, for example, if you go into paralegal and want to go to law school, you can come to Cornell events and meet lawyers and learn about the different lawyer practice areas. So by time you go to law school, you know which practice area you would like. So if you’re starting out as an engineer and you’re trying to figure out whether you want to go down a path of managing engineers or you want to go into a more technical role, you can come to Cornell events and talk to Cornellians and learn about different trade offs between the two paths. You’re not done making friends after finishing Cornell. You can still make more friends relevant to your career and that will help your career. So it’s not just the friends you made from before, there’s friends you make in the future too. So Cornellians come from all over the place from everywhere, and then afterwards, they can be successful in any career trajectory that they choose to go in.

Traci: I’m so excited that you said, “any person, any study, any friend”. That’s amazing. It resonates with every single Cornellian. And then your addition “any friend” talks about the networking. You know, this is part of who we are here, right? Helping each other out, getting through our studies, getting through our jobs, finding inspiration out there in the world from other people. I just love that addition that you made to the motto, if you will.

Christa: I love it. I love it. So there’s so much good advice here, and uplifting advice for the young people who are still trying to figure out, who are their connections? How do they tap into this network? And what does that look like? Where to begin? I’m wondering if someone wants to connect with you. Is that something you’re available for? I mean, are you open to meeting any student who wants to reach out and talk?

Tony: I already talk to ten a day right now, every day. And then, during, like, the layoffs, like two years ago, I was talking to like 25, 30 a day, every day. I try very hard to meet every Cornellian. It’s very important to meet every Cornellian.

Christa: I love that. We’re going to include a link to your LinkedIn, and I’m guessing that is the best way?

Tony: That’s the best way to reach out to me, yeah, and I post a lot on LinkedIn about Cornellians, too. And then, one recommendation that I have actually, is when you start building your network there’s like, if every person is like a node, like, everybody’s a node, and you’re trying to connect different nodes with each other, with lines. You have a node and a node here and you draw a line between the nodes, it’s good, that’s way you start out. You start drawing lines between your node and the other person’s node. And you end up with a lot of lines. But it’s hard to maintain when you have like 300 lines it’s really hard to maintain those lines because you have to, like, once a year, you have to catch up with each line. And then the 300 lines that you have to maintain. So that’s like a one a day every day, and then you end up running out of time. Like, as your network grows, it’s more, think of it in terms of boxes. Rather than having a line of maintaining each individual line, you have a box of nodes. So, Cornell for example, is like a big box of nodes. It’s easier to maintain boxes rather than lines. Because if you go to reunion every year, for example, you automatically reconnect with like 100 people with just one event. Walking around, you reconnect with a lot of people inside that box. Then if you like if you’re part of the Cornell Debate Team, for example, for the Debate Team Sam Nelson goes out New York City. He has a lot of different events around debate. So that’s a good way to maintain your box of nodes. If you’re on a sports athletic team, if you’re on – I was part of Risley and every December we have our Risley get together, our Holiday get together on Zoom. And like the founder of Risley Residential College would come and everybody would share their little Risley stories. That’s a good box as well. Rather than thinking of each connection as a line, think of it as a box. And you should always come back to reunion, always come back to all the different events around each of the groups. That is easier to maintain. Maintenance is very important for relationships.

Christa: Thank you, Tony. I’m going to start using that one, too. I mean, I hope that every student listens to your podcast, and also as I talk with students about their networks, I do think for many people, it’s overwhelming to think about how do I keep up with these relationships? And the way that you talk about it as boxes and more from a community perspective. I think is both, you know, takes away some of the time and energy and, you know, all of that to maintain, and also can make it more lively and, you know, comfortable, and smooth and inspiring. More conversations can happen. I think there’s a lot to this. That’s a great nugget of advice.

Tony: I always try to do events are recurring as well for that reason. If it’s a recurring event, like every two weeks, we have the Zoom call mixer. Every month, we meet at a food court in New York City. Like, every week we do the crossword together. It’s all recurring, week after week, after week after week. Yeah, that really helps maintain the box because if you just come to one, and in like a couple of months later, you come to another one, you’ll see a lot of the same people again, so it helps you maintain that box. I think it’s very important to have these recurring events that happen again and again. Reunion, for example, every year since 1908, we’ve been coming back to reunion every year. Like that’s a good example of a box.

Traci: I’m really interested in how, so even though I’m an instructor and I do work like this, I am an extreme introvert. I get very nervous meeting new people, although I mask it very well. I look like I’m fine, but on the inside, I’m like full of anxiety or I’m extremely tired or whatever it might be. So it’s really, really difficult. And I love these casual inroads that you’ve created for people, like the crossword event. I’m completely drawn to that idea. And so for people like me who have a really hard time, who are stretching themselves to do networking, do you have any advice for those kind of folks that it’s a little bit difficult to dive in the deep end?

Tony: The one thing I try very hard to do, like at the food court events, is I always circle around and look for people who aren’t talking to anybody, might be a little shyer. And I try very hard to learn more about them and then connect them with other similar people within the event. So I try really hard to make sure everybody has a chance to talk to people. I think I think that might be one way to help the more introverted people.

Christa: So when the introverts show up at events, they should look for you.

Tony: Yeah, that way they can connect.

Christa: I have a question for you. So what class had the greatest impact on you when you were a Cornell?

Tony: There’s a lot of things that stand out. After the fact, I realized how helpful they were. One thing I did was the debate team. That helped a lot. It helped with, like, a lot of the communication skills. It also how to form an argument, how to listen to the other side, and respond. That was very good practice. Another really good thing was EARS training, empathy, assistance, and referral. I think the EARS, that one was really good too. I took the level one training, and I took the level two training. There, you learn how to be a good listener. You listen really hard. Try not to judge, just listen very hard, and then try thinking through how are they feeling, the way they’re feeling. Then I just very good practice as well.

Christa: This is great. I imagine these two things, whether you’ve thought about it, you know, maybe helped lead you in the direction to where you are now. And so I’m wondering when you were younger, maybe as a child, or maybe as an incoming first year student at Cornell, what did you imagine yourself doing for your career?

Tony: When I came in, I only knew I liked math and physics. I began applied engineering and physics because they had a class called Mathematical Physics. A great class. I love that class. Beautiful. Through Cornell, I did a lot of other things. I lived in Risley. I did performing arts there. I did a law and society minor. So I learned about all the different laws in societies and the humanities. I did research with the Sociology Department. So as I learned a lot about networks and sociology. I did debate team with all the government majors and policy people. Really, help me expand and get a feel for what more I like in addition to just math and physics. Cornell was very helpful for that. Ever since I graduated, I never used applied physics afterwards. I never did integrals ever again. I’ve always wondered, like, how it helped. I was thinking about it this morning. I realized that in a career, you build up intuition, you build up skills, and you build up relationships. So intuition, skills, and relationships. If you want to get real really good at something, you have to build up intuition, skills, and relationships to do that one thing really, really well. At Cornell the classes, the lectures, that taught a lot of intuition. You get a lot of good intuition about it. They give you a lot of backs and you have to get used to the facts. You have to get to understand the facts, internalize it, adjust it. And that’s good for intuition. The skills from the lab classes, the lab classes give you a lot of skills. So how do pipetting and how to do the programming, how to build the semiconductor thing in lab class. And the relationships, I got that from the clubs and the other activities I did. You learn how to build up intuition. You learned how to build up the skills, you learned how to build up the relationships. And then after that, well, like, in the real world, you start to choose, like a place that you want in an industry that you really want to be good at. And once you choose that industry, you got build up the intuition, the skills and the relationships. For me, for example, I really want to connect all the Cornellians with each other. So I try very hard to build up the intuition around it by meeting every Cornellian, by learning everything about all the different Cornell events. So I build all the intuition. Just having a list of classes, having a list of facts isn’t enough. You have to really internalize the build intuition on what Cornell are doing, what Cornell is doing. And then the skills, is like the marketing, like get the word out about different events, you’ve got to get the word out about different things. I got organized events. That’s another skill. Another skill is like talking and listening and trying really hard to build a relationship with everybody. So that’s the skill side. And then the relationship side, I guess I try to meet every Cornellian, all different age ranges, all different majors, all different places around the world. Those are relationships. And because I build up the intuition, the skills and the relationships for it, I can connect Cornellians a lot better this way.

Traci: Thank you for that. I don’t even know what to expect for the answer for this next one. What do you do to relax and have fun and re-energize yourself.

Tony: So it’s mostly just meeting Cornellians. I like changes in scenery, so I come to Ithaca. I love coming to Ithaca. A lot of times the big cities like DC, New York, Boston, have a lot of things happening all at once. Whereas Ithaca, it’s like, much more manageable. That’s a good way. Coming to the reunion, I think that helps a lot. Well, one thing I actually try to do, I try very hard to do is I try very hard to systemize things. It’s like, the analogy I use is like, if you’re juggling, you’re juggling like three things at once, I have like three balls in the air. You’ve got to remember, you have the red ball, the blue ball, and the yellow ball, where those two other balls are. But once you have, like 20 balls in the air, then it’s really hard to remember where each of the 20 is at. So instead, you have to think of it in terms of a system and each individual ball at a time. So rather than thinking where each ball is, you think right hand, left hand, or where to throw each ball when it does come down, and then you create a little system. Rather than thinking of each individual ball individually. I do that a lot with my events, the recurring events, every two weeks. I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to think when’s the next Zoom call. I know it’s in two weeks. Just like has been two weeks ago, just has been like four weeks ago. I think the systems help manage a lot of juggle. Like, the newsletter. Every month, I publish a newsletter. That helps a lot, too. It becomes like a system. Like, what day do I have my newsletter? It’s at the end of the month, it’s time to do the newsletter again. Systems that helps, like everybody to, like, get on the same schedule as well. That helps a bunch, too. So systemize. I always think in terms of system. It doesn’t really help me relax, but it relieves a lot of the stress and to all that.

Christa: You’re engineering your life. I love it.

Traci: Yeah. A wise person told me many years ago that engineering gives you a systems way of thinking, and I think that you’ve just explained the benefit of that in this context very, very well. Thank you so much for your time today. I’m getting energy just listening to you and having this conversation, and I’ve learned about events that I didn’t even know about. And so for that, if nothing else, I’m absolutely thankful. But your energy bringing together all of these people from all of the different majors, and just welcoming them back to campus, with your energy and the way that you want to hold all these people together, right given their time at Cornell. I just think it’s a really wonderful thing that you’re doing. And so the whole campus owes you a thank you as far as I’m concerned.

Tony: Like, I’m very, very fortunate to be a Cornellian. I’m very, very fortunate. I think, like, when I applied to Cornell I had no idea there was such a wonderful alumni network. And I’m very fortunate that I chose Cornell. I think that Cornell really brings a lot of people together from all kinds of different ways so that after graduation, Cornellians all still come together. I took classes with all kinds of different majors. I took classes with MBAs. I took classes with JDs, I took classes with Hotelies. Like it really brings people together. And I’m very grateful for having gone to Cornell. Like, I think after graduation, then it really sunk in and I was like, wow, I’m very fortunate to be a Cornellian.

Christa: And we’re fortunate to have you. Thank you so much for doing all of this, Tony. Thank you for listening. If you are enjoying these conversations, please follow, rate, and review on your favorite platform. Join us for the next episode, where we will be celebrating excellence and innovation among engineers whose impact contributes to a healthier, more equitable, and more sustainable world.

Title: Pioneering Sustainable Materials with Machine Learning: Florencia Paredes ’11

Christa Downey: I’m Christa Downey, Director of the Engineering Career Center at Cornell University.

Traci Nathans-Kelly: And I’m Traci Nathans-Kelly, Director of the Engineering Communications Program. We are excited to bring you this forum where we will host lively conversations that we hope will inspire you. We had the wonderful opportunity to speak with Florencia Paredes, who is the Head of Product at Citrine Informatics. She was a 2011 graduate of the Materials Science major at Cornell, and at that time, the kind of work that she does now didn’t even exist. Join us as we explore the fascinating work she does each and every day. Florencia, it’s good to have you here today.

Florencia Paredes: Great to be here. Thank you for having me.

Christa: Yes, thank you. Can you tell us start by telling us about your current work?

Florencia: Yeah, so I lead product at Citrine informatics. It’s a software company at the intersection of machine learning and material science, and it’s really focused on helping materials engineers create new materials faster. You know, all over the news these days, you might hear headlines about the impact of materials from limiting pollution from chemical plants to the need for better battery energy storage systems. We help a lot of those companies. So we see a lot of those great projects coming through and working with our product. And that’s really where we come in and we help these big companies develop new materials for the future, and we’re really focused on sustainability. And I’m happy to give an an example on how our software works. So for example, let’s say that I am a materials engineer, and I’m working on specific plastic, like an ABS plastic. A plastic that is used for making car parts, like the dashboard of your car or making toys, and my goal, is to remove some banned flame retardants. Specific chemicals that are added to the plastic to make it more resistant to burning. Maybe these flame retardants are known to cause cancer. I want to remove them from these plastics, especially if they’re toys, but even in cars. I want to remove the specific chemicals from that plastic, and that plastic is made of think of a recipe or formulation of a lot of different chemicals. I’m trying to remove one specific chemical when I make it. But I also want to maintain those mechanical properties of my plastic, for example, like strength and ductility and toughness. As a materials engineer, I can use the Citrine platform and upload all my past experimental data of all the tests, strength tests and toughness tests, and all the past recipes and formulations that I’ve done. Upload all of that to the Citrine platform, and then using the machine learning from the Citrine platform. I can use it to help me figure out what my next experiment should be so that I get closer to my goal. Essentially, after a couple of experimental iterations, I find my new formulation or my new recipe for a plastic that continues to be strong and tough but doesn’t have those banned substances, and I get there faster. Sometimes projects like these can take a couple of years, say like five years to find a new formulation, and with the Citrine platform, I can cut that down to like two years, right? So we really are about helping these materials and chemicals companies cut down how long it takes to find that new recipe, that new formulation, so that they can do it faster and be able to make those changes faster so that we have those new products without, for example, these banned flame retardants in the market.

Christa: Excellent. That helps me a lot. Thank you.

Traci: It’s really quite interesting because right now I think anytime somebody thinks, oh, we’re using these large models, AI of any sort, LLMs, whatever it might be, to help us do this work, and we think it’s instantaneous. And so for you to say it takes us from five years to two years versus and in my head, I’m like, oh, this is an afternoon’s worth of work. No. So given that, like, what does a day’s work look like?

Florencia: For me as a product manager that works on building this platform, right, for the materials engineers to use. So, these days, I lead our product teams, so I’m really focusing more on setting the product strategy and vision and aligning it with our business goals and objectives, and really overseeing that we essentially that we are making sure that we’re building what matters for our customers, right? So I mentioned our customers are these big materials, chemicals companies who have these materials engineers that are working on these, tough materials problems. My goal is really making sure that we are delivering the best products and features and tools that these folks need in order to realize that truth of cutting these big project scopes that may take multiple years into a lot less and helping them be faster and more efficient in their day to day. For me, this means that a lot of my day to day is working with other groups in my organization from marketing and sales, customer success, and our customers as well, and just making sure that we are all internally, within my organization, that we’re all aligned and working in unison towards the same goal. So I also spend a lot of my time with my team or product managers, going through their user flows, hearing their brilliant ideas, talking through customer research and user interviews and user research that we may have done, which is always a lot of fun. That’s really where we focus most of our time, just making sure that we are defining the right problems and finding the right problems to work on.

Traci: It’s such an iterative closely drawn creative process, right? And then you have to fit it into your workflow. I just I find it all very, really fascinating, all these interplays between the different teams.

Christa: Yeah, I love the intersection. Is it customized for each manufacturer or each company materials company?

Florencia: That’s a great question. No. Our product is specifically, where software as a service, and it is a general product that you’re really, that these companies are buying and can apply to their specific material, their specific projects, their specific scope. So it’s a lot of fun to really, you know, from a product perspective, be able to see the generalizability across all of those, be able to understand what has the biggest impact, the most value.

Christa: So what’s the most significant challenge you faced in your work? And how did you overcome it?

Florencia: Two very different challenges at work. I would say, in these past couple of years with COVID and everything, we had layoffs, and that was definitely one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make. And I’m sure a lot of people in tech can relate to that. But I want to talk about a different challenge that maybe is a little bit more unique. When I joined the company, we did not have a product yet. We had a proof of concept that we showed had the right technology, and we were hitting the right business hypothesis to make this company great. But we functioned more like a services company. So we were helping really kind of building out the necessary things and helping more specifically working on specific projects with kind of this tool that we had. Making the transition from a services focused company to a product company where it is one product that is generalizable across multiple customers. That was one of the biggest challenges I have faced because there’s definitely so many directions you can go in, right? And how do you find the right direction to go in? Of course, you define goals and you make sure that you’re working towards those goals. There’s just a lot that goes on with this change from internal behavior to positioning and pricing and so on. The change management, it requires internally is significant. What else? I just it’s both very challenging and also very fun, in a sense, because we were a much smaller company back then, is that you have such an open array of possibilities, and you really have to make decisions and go in one direction and test what’s working and what’s not. At the same time, being a small company, you’re wearing a lot of hats, right, wearing a lot of hats, trying to do many things at once. There’s a lot really that you’re working on and trying to figure out and it’s challenging, but it’s very rewarding, I guess is what I’m trying to say here.

Christa: Excellent. Thank you for sharing that.

Traci: You touched on this just a little bit before with your example about removing the fire retardants from a particular plastic. But we always like to ask our guests, how is what you’re doing contributing to this more sustainable idea that we have these goals, that we’re trying to make this a healthier planet? Can you walk us through that?

Florencia: Yeah. We help our customers realize more sustainable products faster, right? We talked a little bit about that. And what has always drawn me, so I have a material science background, and what has always drawn me to material science and the chemicals world is that everything made of materials, right? From fabrics to batteries to biomedical implants to the table that I have in front of me here. So this industry is a huge industry, a trillion dollar market. And we are helping a lot of these companies, as I mentioned, really be able to make those changes. So for example, we’ve helped a consumer packaged goods company remove PFAS, so like forever chemicals from their consumer products, these chemicals that are known to cause multiple problems within our bodies. We were able to remove those products from a couple of consumer goods consumer products that are actually out in the market. We’ve helped personal health companies reformulate some of their flagship products with more bio based materials to be more sustainable, so more sustainable ingredients, essentially, removing some of those ingredients, again, just like my example. That’s how our company really helps see that future and working with those companies to realize those changes, remove those harmful chemicals and get there faster. And what’s amazing is, both fun and part of the material science world is that you can do that across so many different areas, right? I mentioned a couple chemicals there, but again, everything is made of materials. So there’s a lot of potential and a lot more that we definitely need to do from a sustainability perspective.

Traci: You are an expert at this. You’ve been at it for a long time. You neck deep, right, in the details. But we’ve asked you to think about what’s it like to be a sophomore. Trying to decide on a major, or anything else that you think a sophomore might need to know. So we kind of use that as a benchmark here, so time for the wayback machine. What advice?

Florencia: Got to go back and think about this. I’d say two things. You know, one of the most impactful things that I did, and I wish I did more of these, is internships. Knowing what work life is like early to help me back then, be able to understand both just internalize more the value of what I’m learning in each class and selecting my different classes. So doing more of that. So I do recommend definitely an internship at a company that you might think that you might be interested in in the future. It’s a great way to find what you’d like and what you don’t like. And I would also say for me personally, because I did go into the software development world, I would have liked to have taken more computer science and computation classes, and even more statistics classes, I think today they have data science classes as well. I don’t know if they called them that back in my day. But that is another area, just because I did go into software development under my belt.

Traci: Those that absolutely makes sense to me. I think I have the same tally sheet of things I should have done.

Christa: That’s fair. So what would you say, what classes or class had the greatest impact in preparing you for your career?

Florencia: Yeah, so I took an applied materials class. I can’t remember exactly what it was called at the time, a materials design class. And just really being able to see the application and how you really go through that whole process was very valuable. I focused a little bit more on polymers in part of my career and journey. So I would have, we work we work with a lot of chemical companies as well, and I’m definitely glad that I had some of those polymer classes, maybe would have taken a couple more. So yeah, I’ll also say, I took the wines course and loved that. So you also have to take some of those classes that are applicable not only to your career, but to your everyday life.

Traci: I think that that is great advice. I think too many people forget to take the fun classes too. Even though people tell me wines is really hard.

Florencia: Yes. I remember that.

Traci: So where do you go to keep current on what’s happening in your field right now?

Florencia: Yeah, so my field is kind of an intersection of multiple different things from data science and the latest machine learning and AI technology, and also the materials and chemicals world, in addition to consumer packaged goods and other markets as well. So there’s a lot to kind of keep track of. And I wouldn’t say that I go to one specific area. But, you know, I keep up in kind of both those realms, especially the AI and ML. Keep up with all of the you know, for example, everyone’s probably familiar with this, all of the new advancements in GPT and all the LLMs and all of those, like foundational model enhancements and everything that’s coming out in that space, because that’s critical to our product. And we’re always looking to how we can really expand and be at the leading edge of materials informatics or our space, of Citrine, our company. So we’re always looking at new things to see, okay, will this make an impact in our product? Will it make our core technology better? We have these problems that we want to solve for our customer, can these tools help? I don’t know if I’m answering your question to be honest, around, is there a specific place that I go? I really try to look, I’ll mention, I do use Google alerts to help me look into, you know, these specific areas. So I do get kind of a synopsis of what has been coming out in the past week.

Christa: I like that, too, and that’s a good maybe message for people who aren’t sure where to go. If you don’t know where else to go, where to begin, and you can’t find it, add an alert and see what comes to you. Add several alerts. I like that. You know? Who knows? Like there’s so many advancements coming your way that, yeah, who knows what’s going to be the next thing that’s going to be useful to you? That’s fascinating. You really are on the cutting edge. Love it. Okay, so if you are not doing this work right now, what might you be doing?

Florencia: Yeah. So I love the outdoors. I also just had a baby. So I would say that my days these days are filled, mostly, when I’m not working, trying to go on hikes and definitely getting outside into the trees. My husband and I also have a camper van. We get into the outdoors, camping, exploring, just even the local flora and fun of California. I am a new mother, but I’m hoping to get back into some sports that I really enjoy, like mountain biking, windsurfing, skiing. Really, if you could sum it up, it’s really just being outside in a sense.

Traci: Love that so much. California is a great spot to do that. Lots of great choices overall. We usually ask at the end, what do you do to relax or recharge, but I think you already told us. And that’s really, really quite wonderful. And, you know, being outside, just hits that reset button for most of us.

Florencia: It really does.

Traci: Thank you so much for joining us today. It’s a spot The work that you’re doing is a spot that I have been completely blind to. I mean, I certainly know about material science and CHEME and CS, but this intersection is such an interesting place to be. And so thank you for helping us kind of wade through that a little bit with you.

Florencia: Yeah, yeah. Thank you for having me.

Christa: Good. I appreciate that a lot, it definitely, this conversation definitely helps to demystify some things for me. Thank you.

Florencia: Good, good. If you are enjoying these conversations, please follow, rate, and review on your favorite platform. Join us for the next episode, where we will be celebrating excellence and innovation among engineers whose impact contributes to a healthier, more equitable, and more sustainable world.

Title: Delivering Insights on the Energy Industry and Climate Impact: Kasim Khan ‘20

Christa Downey: Welcome to Engineering Career Conversations. I’m Christa Downey, Director of the Engineering Career Center at Cornell University.

Traci Nathans-Kelly: And I’m Traci Nathans-Kelly, Director of the Engineering Communications Program. We are excited to bring you this forum where we will host lively conversations that we hope will inspire you.

Christa: We’re here today with Kasim Khan. Kasim is a research analyst at Wood Mackenzie, a global provider of data and analytic solutions for the renewable energy and natural resources industries. After graduating from Cornell Engineering in 2020, he began work at Woodmac, Supply Chain, doing consulting for utility, working to optimize supply chain operations across North America. His experience eventually led him to join the research team, where he now focuses on advising clients on energy storage technologies and operations. Welcome, Kasim. It’s great to see it today.

Kasim Khan: Yeah, good to see you.

Christa: Thank you. So I’m excited to share your story with our listeners. And I’m hoping you can start by telling us a little bit about what you do in your current work, and then go into what does that look like on the, you know, day to day basis?

Kasim: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, currently I work as a research analyst for an energy economics and consulting firm called Wood Mackenzie or Woodmac, for short. And, essentially what we do. You know, I think I kind of view us as being, like a information aggregator, you know, both of quantitative and qualitative information, and we use that to develop our own research reports, pricing forecasts, other types of forecasts and really, like a independent third party expertise that we use to advise pretty much anyone in the energy industry about challenges, opportunities. I mean, this can be like advising renewable developers who are actually building battery storage projects, but it can also be like advising say, you know, like the Nigerian government on their oil and gas policy or something like that. Like, we work with a variety of players across the globe, and it’s just very exciting to be in such a position where I can provide that, that sort of expert advice to different people. But yeah, so in terms of what that looks like on more of the day to day, I think a big part of my job is definitely speaking with people in the industry, so getting their perspective, hearing their thoughts, and then synthesizing all these different perspectives from different stakeholders into your own perspective on the market and then use that to develop thought leadership pieces. I’d say, yes, besides actually speaking to people and hopping on calls, a big part of it is working in Excel, PowerPoint typical tools I think a lot of analysts use, no matter which industry or which company you’re working in. But I mean, certainly, those are, you know, some places where I spent a lot of my time to day to day working on, like, specific pricing models or developing reports for a pricing forecast. I’m talking price right now because I’ve been working on that this week, and that should be coming out in a few weeks.

Christa: Yes. So if someone wants to get into this type of work, what might they consider doing as an undergraduate?

Kasim: Yeah, I mean, for this type of, like, market research role, I think you can really come from pretty much any background to be honest. I mean, the nice thing about this type of work is that though the organizations you work in and the people you work with come from a variety of backgrounds because it’s really important to have that diverse perspective. So like myself, I used to be engineering, a lot of my colleagues also did engineering, of all types, you know, chemical, I was myself, and then I have other colleagues who did electrical, et cetera, but also people studying or who studied OR, people who had more of a policy background or maybe studied like pure mathematics, that sort of thing. Yeah, so really, I think, as long as there’s, like, a demonstrated interest in the energy industry, and, you know, I think, as long as you also show potential for skills, like, skills that would be good in any job, you know, communication, teamwork, leadership, all those things are super important.

Christa: What’s one of the greatest challenges you’ve faced in your career?

Kasim: Yeah, good question. I think I would probably say the greatest challenge was this one specific project that I was on, not in my current role, but still at Woodmac, in my previous role in supply chain consulting. To give a little bit of context there, in supply chain consulting, we work mostly with utilities on specific project engagement, so like helping them renegotiate contracts, for example. Yeah, without going into too much detail, I’ll say that I was maybe a couple of years into my career, and I was in charge of leading these negotiations with a few contracts that this one utility had with a slew of private equity firms. And these are people who obviously know their stuff. And that meant I really had to know my stuff. And it’s not just that, right? It’s not just giving a simple presentation, but it’s actually, like, developing an argument. Actually sitting on a call and talking to these people and telling them information that they really don’t want to hear, and they really don’t like hearing. So, I mean, that was a huge challenge for me, right, especially, you know, coming from an engineering background where like, maybe some of those, like, more nuanced, you know, like organizational behavior, challenging questions, isn’t it really something I dealt with a lot. But it’s definitely an opportunity that I took to grow. I mean, I think I really overcame that by just like being as prepared as I could. So obviously developing my negotiation points, but then also, like, asking my colleagues for feedback, you know, holding, like mock calls before we actually did the real thing, as well as just like recording myself, hearing you know, hearing what I say correctly, what I say incorrectly, and better ways to phrase things. And, yeah, I mean, you know, I think it was definitely tough for the first couple of times, but I quickly became comfortable with it. And I think it really made me grow as a person. And I feel like after going through that, I feel like I can talk to pretty much anyone right now.

Christa: Yes, thank you for sharing that. This is something that we all go through at some point in our lives and our careers. And I appreciate that students can hear that story that they’re not the only ones who are struggling with this. Yeah. Thank you.

Kasim: Yeah. And I might also add just really quick, I feel like I think about this a lot, you know, because I feel like we hear a lot of these success stories of, like, really exceptional people who do amazing things in their 20s, right? And I’m sure a lot of a lot of highly motivated students at Cornell, elsewhere. You know, I mean, I myself was one of those definitely, we all want to shoot for the moon, right? And so with that is, like, you’re probably going to be in rooms where you’re going to be the youngest person there. So I think there is definitely always going to be some of that imposture syndrome. But I think maybe folks could turn that around and say, well, that actually means that I don’t know, you’re doing the right stuff.

Christa: Yes. That’s exactly right. I like that. I appreciate that perspective. So what inspired you to get into this line of work, and what is the impact you’re hoping to make?

Kasim: Yeah, for sure. So what inspired me? I mean, pretty much as long as I can remember have been interested in climate, energy. I mean, you know, since I was a kid. Just reading about the issue of global warming and climate change was something that always, like, really stuck out to me as being this huge problem that we may or may not end up solving. I think at this point, I can probably say that we’ve made quite a bit of progress. So I’m actually, I’m sure some people might feel differently, but personally, I actually don’t feel too bad or as bad about the situation as I did, maybe ten years ago. But, I mean, yeah, that’s kind of been the main driver. So, like, that led me to studying back in high school, you know, for the science fair. I was looking at different types of battery technologies and battery research that were going on. I mean, this is kind of this is like 2013, 2014, when Tesla was beginning to getting some press coverage, still, you know, very early stage, like there weren’t Teslas on the road in every other corner, like you see nowadays. But yes, that kind of prompted me to get into the battery EV battery storage space. And then when I was looking at colleges, it seemed like Cornell had a really great program for engineering, but also for the liberal arts, so I can get some more exposure to concepts beyond just the pure technology of things. So, that’s really what I think drove me from like a background in chemical engineering, energy research at Cornell to something where I’d be able to also get a broader perspective of the actual industry, you know, beyond academia. So I mean, myself, you know, my senior year, I was kind of like really thinking between should I continue with the research and maybe do a PhD and really contribute to like the cutting edge of what’s possible, with battery chemistry, or should I take this consulting offer that I had with Woodmac and actually figure out what are some of the other non technical challenges happening right now? So that’s what I did. And I feel like I’ve learned a lot I’ve met some really amazing people. Yeah, ultimately, it just kind of led me to, you know, returning from the consulting work to something more research and more battery based, but not in the academic sense, in the market research sense.

Christa: What ways do you anticipate AI impacting your work or this industry in general?

Kasim: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Of course, AI is the thing everyone’s talking about right now. Yeah, I mean, as a matter of fact, it’s something that has been getting a lot of buzz, I think, in the energy community in the past past month, past couple of months here, as these different utilities, or grid operators across the country put out their forecasts for what they think their demand, like what they think their peak demand is going to look like ten, 20, 30 years from now, that number is really, really increasing year over year, and that’s primarily due to data center growth, and the acceleration of that due to this boom we’re seeing artificial intelligence. So you know, certainly from that perspective, it’s like a lot of clients are asking us questions about how our data center is planning to meet that load growth. You know, obviously, these companies want to get to 100% renewable carbon free power. So some of that is definitely going to be delivered through storage, which is, you know, the research that I work on, specifically. But then, it’s also going to be met by other things in the landscape. So I think a flip side to that is AI is also helping helping us accomplish the energy transition. Like, I think one area of technology that’s really exciting right now are these things called virtual power plants. Now, I mean, these are things that I’ve been hearing about for quite a while now, but I think they’re starting to get a pretty serious amount of attention these days and quite a bit of press. And so essentially, AI is really helpful here because it’s really key in building these algorithms that can take you know, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands plus of things like smart meters, electric vehicles, heat pumps that are scattered all across the region and figure out like the optimal dispatch strategies for each of those devices. And if you aggregate all of that, you can treat it as like a power plant that’s the new virtual power plant. That’s been really helpful because it’s a really cost effective way for utilities to meet that demand growth without actually building, like a brand new solar plant or a brand new battery plant. So it’s like both sides. You know, AI is causing this huge demand growth, but then we can also help meet it with AI as well.

Christa: Yeah, so there are people with a variety of skill sets and interests who can get involved here. Students who are interested in data analytics, students who are interested in AI development, certainly, those who are civil engineers, chemical engineers, I mean, right, there’s so many different angles where people can get involved in the work that you’re doing. I’m curious to hear about the different types of people and companies and organizations that you are collaborating with on a regular basis.

Kasim: Yeah, different types of people, organizations, and companies. Well, that’s the exciting thing about the job, I think is we get to work with a huge diverse set of players. So in terms of the people, I think pretty much anyone who’s working in the energy space we interact with. So I mean, this can be very broad. I mean, these can be, you know, like policymakers, you know, people with insight into what policy is happening in Washington. That’s super helpful for us right now, because, for those of you who don’t know, the one huge huge boon for renewable energy in the past couple of years has been the Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022, and there’s still a lot of uncertainty as to how some of those benefits are going to translate. So, yeah, we speak to people who are in tune with that policy side, speak to people on the technology side. So like, what, you know, like engineers, like people actually doing engineering at different battery companies. They’re super big to talk to on the sales side, business development, hearing what market opportunities different different players have and challenges they’re facing. Yeah, and I kind of alluded this earlier, but in terms of, like, organizations, these can be governments, these can be banks, financial institutions, who are lending money to renewable energy projects. These can be actual developers, so people who are actually building the project, they can be OEMs, original equipment manufacturers that are actually building the tech that is getting deployed here, and, yeah, it could be think tanks, non profits, as well, et cetera, et cetera.

Christa: What do you wish you knew when you were a sophomore?

Kasim: What I wish I had known as a sophomore is, I think, really being able to appreciate the networking opportunities I had in undergrad. And I honestly don’t think I really understood the meaning of networking until, like, shortly before I graduated or maybe even after I graduated. So yeah, for those sophomores or freshmen who might be listening to the podcast, I don’t mean networking opportunities as in, like, attending networking events and schmoozing with people. Although that’s part of it. I’m not going to say don’t do that, but I think a lot of it really just comes from, like, being aware that you’re in this awesome place surrounded by, like by people. I mean, you all had to apply and get in and get accepted. So it’s just like an extraordinary environment to learn from so many different types of people who will all go on to do great things. And, you know, like, both from a professional and social perspective, I think it’s super important to just, like, pass on, you know, like, make as many connections as you can, join clubs. Yeah, just, like, really stay in touch with people. You know, I mean, I’m not going to say it’s like, impossible after college, but it definitely gets a little harder. I mean, I’m thankful that in the consulting role I had, I was able to meet a lot of people, you know, kind of my age with similar interests. But you’re not going to find that everywhere. So yeah, definitely seize that opportunity, while you have it.

Christa: So along those lines, what classes had the greatest impact in preparing you for your career?

Kasim: I mean, there are a few I could pick from. I think what’s probably been most helpful was my experience in the intro, not intro to CHEME class, but it was CHEME 2190, ENGRD 2190. This is the class that all sophomore CHEMEs take before they, you know, actually get into the major. I had a great professor. I hope he still teaches this course. I’m actually not sure, but Professor Duncan. He, I think, taught me a lot about, like, how to think about problems creatively, as well as how to do creative research and present information in new ways. That makes it intuitive for the reader to understand what you’re saying. I mean, that’s super helpful in the work that I do because I’m always trying to think of ways we can use data to tell stories, and a lot of our clients come to us with questions. Sometimes it can be really hard to answer that if you don’t have a structured way of thinking about it. So yeah, just like those ways of problem solving and thinking about how to analyze and present data has been has been super helpful.

Christa: What do you do to relax and re energize and have fun?

Kasim: Well, I think music’s my biggest thing. I love, love, love to play music and listen to music as well, of course. So I’ve been doing French Horn for a long time. Yeah, you know, middle school, high school, then I was in the symphony orchestra in college. And and Boston’s great, so I’m based in Boston. And it’s a great place for finding community groups to play in. I’m actually playing in a concert in about a week. So that’s pretty exciting. Definitely a great way to, you know, meet people and just kind of a, take my mind off work. And then also play some guitar on the side as well and jam with some friends in the city. And then, yeah, beyond that, you know, I like playing tennis, you know, board games with friends and all that. Fun stuff.

Christa: Is there any place you want people to follow you to see where you’re playing?

Kasim: Oh, to see me playing. I don’t know about that, but if you want to if you want to follow me in my socials, I’m happy to say, you can find me @kawesomekhan on Twitter. K Awesome Khan.

Christa: Okay. Excellent. Excellent. Okay. So speaking of social, where do you go to stay current on information for your field of work?

Kasim: I think Twitter X is actually kind of underrated, still. Like, I mean, yeah, like ignoring all the drama that’s kind of happened in the past, like, a year and a half, but still it’s like, interesting, you know? Like, you’d think after everyone sort of, I mean, not boycotting, but kind of wanting to leave the platform after Elon Musk bought it. It’s like you’d think there would be something else that people are on now, but really not really. Like, I’ve spoken with people who are like thought leaders in the industry as well, and they’ve kind of told me that LinkedIn, Twitter is pretty much the place to be. And I like it a lot because I mean, if you keep it to a professional level, I think it could be quite informative. It’s just a great way to hear directly from smart people. I mean, like, you’ll have a lot of professors doing really insightful research, and you can tweet them and asked them questions, or see, like, back and forth discourse between different academics or different people who work in industry. It’s like a really great way to see, like what is trending right now in energy.

Christa: So if you were not doing this work right now, what might you be doing?

Kasim: Yeah, if I was not doing this. I mean, is this kind of like a dream job question?

Christa: Maybe. Maybe. Whatever you want it to be?

Kasim: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know. I do love music a lot. I feel like if I, yeah, you know, if like, money were no object, I suppose. I probably would be doing that in some sense. You know, I mean, it would probably be more on the rock or pop side or indie side than classical or French Horn. I mean, I love the French Horn, but I just I just don’t think I could do classical music for the rest of my life.

Christa: Who knows? Who knows? Maybe some thing will come out of that. Fantastic. Is there anything else you’d like to share with our audience?

Kasim: I mean, I guess there are a few things. I think I mentioned this, I mentioned this in the beginning. But in terms of the progress we’re making on the energy transition, I think it’s actually been pretty significant the past few years. Let’s see, like, I mean, in 2018, policies had us on track for about 3.1 to 3.7 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100, and that’s above pre industrial levels. And now that’s down to 2.5 to 2.9. So, I mean, within six years or something, that’s gone down a pretty significant amount. And so I think some of those success stories, you know, don’t get talked about as much. I think it’s important to recognize that a ton of progress has been made. I mean, granted, you know, those are still just projections, so we need people to actually make those a reality. And obviously 2.5 to 2.9 is still very bad. You know, anything anything above zero, I mean, really is not good. But yeah, so it’s like we made good progress, but yeah, we’ve got to keep fighting the good fight. And then, you know, I guess, the other thing from like a more career advice perspective, I would really encourage, like, reaching out to alumni and people who work in the industry because as an undergrad, like, I really didn’t know about the opportunities to get involved in renewable energy. Like, these weren’t really companies that came up in class discussions. So I think without doing the right outreach, you’re not really going to know what’s out there. And then maybe a third thing is something that I wish I had maybe done a little bit more is just, like, kind of trust my instinct and not like overthink things too much, because I don’t know, kind of, like, what I’ve found personally is, like, my instinctual decisions have usually been right. Like, you don’t need a reason for everything. I feel like a lot of a lot of engineers want to know why like they’re doing every single thing. I mean, just like natural curiosity, right. But I think to some degree, you don’t need to know why, you can just do things because you want to do it.

Christa: I like that. Good. I appreciate your positive outlook towards the future. It gives me hope because, yeah, I was seeing it less hopeful than you’re portraying it. So I appreciate that.

Kasim: It definitely comes and goes. Depending on the latest headlines, yeah.

Christa: Awesome. I’ve greatly appreciated learning more about the work that you’re doing, and again, your insight into where we’re headed. So thank you so much for chatting, and we will talk again soon.

Kasim: Yeah, thanks. It was a pleasure chatting.

Christa: Thank you for listening. If you are enjoying these conversations, please follow, rate, and review on your favorite platform. Join us for the next episode, where we will be celebrating excellence and innovation among engineers whose impact contributes to a healthier, more equitable, and more sustainable world.

Title: Driving Innovation in Automotive and Mobility Safety: Haley Antoine Grantham ‘19

Christa Downey: Welcome to the Engineering Career Conversations. I’m Christa Downey, Director of the Engineering Career Center at Cornell University.

Traci Nathans-Kelly: And I’m Traci Nathans-Kelly, Director of the Engineering Communications Program. We are excited to bring you this forum where we will host lively conversations that we hope will inspire you. Today in Engineering Career Conversations, we’re spending some time with Haley Antoine Grantham. She’s a Safety and Crashworthiness Engineer at Toyota Motor North America Research and Development. We welcome Haley, and we had such an enjoyable time speaking to her about the many interesting aspects about her job. So stay tuned. Haley, thank you so much for being with us here today. We’re so excited to hear everything you’ve been up to because it’s quite a lot, and I’m really particularly interested in these topics. So we’re going to let you give us your context. Tell us about your current work. What are you up to?

Haley Antonie Grantham: Yeah, absolutely. So I am a Safety and Crashworthiness Engineer at Toyota Motor North America, Research and Development or TMNA R&D for short. I’m based out of the Ann Arbor Michigan area. It’s about 30 minutes away from Detroit. And so for the first I guess, four years or so of my career, I was a Pedestrian Protection Engineer. So what does that even mean? Most people when they think about crash safety, they’re typically thinking about, you know, being the occupant of a vehicle. So inside the vehicle, when you’re sitting in the front or the back seat, however, at Toyota, we care about the safety of those that are also outside of our vehicles. So in my role, our ultimate goal is to reduce the likelihood of head and leg injuries to pedestrians, and also bicyclists, can’t forget them. And In order to do this, I use computer modeling tools to predict these injuries throughout vehicle development. And we collaborate with lots of designers and other engineers to implement design changes. And then eventually later in development, we’ll actually do physical testing, and we’re literally launching these instrumented, almost like severed dummy heads and legs at our vehicles, which is pretty crazy and pretty exciting to see. But about six months ago, I actually moved into a new function within crash safety. It’s the advanced body structure and computer aided engineering group. Which is quite a mouthful, but we really do have similar goals to the pedestrian safety team and that we want to reduce the likelihood of injuries, but this time for the occupants of the vehicle. So we’re trying to manage the energy of the vehicle crash through different designs and being really strategic with the way that we create our vehicle upper and underbody. But outside of all of that engineering work, I stay pretty busy in a lot of other activities at Toyota. I’m actually the R&D co-op coordinator. So I lead R&Ds recruitment, engagement, and conversion efforts. And I have a big team of a bunch of really awesome people, managers and engineers alike that support our specific functions within R&D. And I’m also part of our employee resource group, or we call them business partnering groups called Women Influencing and Impacting Toyota or WIIT, for short, as a steering committee leader.

Traci: That’s a lot.

Haley: Yeah. Yep, I like to stay busy. Absolutely. Maybe Cornell taught me how to do that.

Traci: So I have a I have a follow up question. So you’re absolutely right. Most people think about the crash worthiness as being a passenger or driver. And that you’re working about this outside of the vehicle itself, right? You’re tangential, if you will, to the vehicle itself, but it’s so important. I didn’t realize that this was part of crash testing before. How did you get into that subset of expertise? It’s really interesting.

Haley: Yeah, absolutely. You probably haven’t heard of it, because actually in the United States, it’s not a regulation yet. So um, kind of my group is doing this advanced safety work because it is supposed to be coming into effect in the US, in the near future, actually, the government agency that regulates, you know, crash safety standards, they had just released kind of their new “teaser” for the regulation protocol. So we expect it to come soon. But in other parts of the world, Europe, China, Japan, Australia, there are lots of regulations and ratings related to pedestrian. But in the way that I found it, I guess, is just sort of by chance, I did two co-op rotations in crash safety at Toyota, and the second one was actually in this pedestrian protection group. The first one was in a side crash group, so that was more of the occupant protection. And then after I got exposed to that and my second co-op, I decided, gosh, maybe this is a career for me. So it was truly by chance, it wasn’t, definitely wasn’t something I planned on doing.

Christa: Haley, as a pedestrian and a cyclist, I’m grateful for this work. And I’m thrilled, I’m excited to share with my cycling friends the news about the future of this work. So I greatly appreciate that, as well. Tell us more, what’s the day-to-day for you?

Haley: Yeah, absolutely. Day to day is pretty different. So during traditional vehicle development, for example, the ninth generation Camry, which we just launched earlier this year, or maybe the new Tacoma, which we launched late last year, both of which I supported. You can kind of think of those as traditional vehicle developments. So we go through lots of feedback design cycles throughout maybe 2.5 to three year development time frame. And as an evaluation engineer, I take the designs that our design engineers develop, and then really put them to the test. Whether this is using finite element analysis, simulations, hand calculations or physical testing, I evaluate those designs either virtually or with actual parts and then feedback to the designers about maybe what’s going well or maybe something that I’d like to potentially change or improve for a particular performance I’m responsible for, so that head injury or maybe that leg injury. But I can’t just be the only person informing that design because so many other engineers and performances, other than crash safety depend on the design of a part, for example, like our aerodynamics team, our handling team, our engine cooling team, strength, durability, there’s so many different performances that go into a vehicle. And so we all have to come together, come to a consensus if we’re all kind of maybe conflicting about a part change, for example. Feedback to the designer on what we agree upon. And then the designer then has to do more confirmation. So they have to check with other groups outside of just R&D, like our manufacturing or production teams, and then even our styling groups, which are kind of like the artists of vehicle development. And so all that to say, really is a lot of communication and collaboration, right? So, whether that’s within crash safety or with other groups, we just spend a lot of time during development, collaborating, working with different engineering teams, and we’re really trying to ensure that we find the best possible solution to meet our performance targets. Then that’s kind of the traditional vehicle development, right? But Toyota is actually transitioning from an automobile company to a mobility company, as we’re calling it. So it’s really focusing on how we move people, goods, and information, not just this classic car and truck company. What does that really mean? But I mean, mobility really means for Toyota. It’s about current and future research, technology, products, and services that make us competitive beyond automobiles. Hardware and software platforms that make life safer, provide more flexible and on demand solutions and anticipate changes of the time. So with that, I know that all sounds kind of broad and maybe, you know, not necessarily related to vehicles, which is what we’re all very used to seeing coming out of Toyota. It’s actually enabled us to work on some really cool projects. And I’ve worked on some projects in areas that completely unrelated to my core job in crash safety, like projects and accessories for off roading, which is a kind of, I guess, hobby that I had never been exposed to growing up in Southern California, and, you know, going to school in Ithaca. And then another project that will eventually be customer facing on our Toyota website, and then our Toyota and Lexus apps, which has been really cool. And I truly have no background in computer science, and I’m definitely not doing the hard coding for it, but I’m actually managing this project, kind of coming up with the concept behind it. So it’s a really exciting time to be in automotive, you know, not just in Toyota, but automotive as a whole is really going through this shift. So really no day is quite the same, and there’s lots of fun things going on.

Traci: I love your emphasis here with collaboration and communication and trying on all these new things, what you’re describing, working with your CS folks, with the apps and the web page and all. You’re going to be the perfect user tester, right? All of that and a different kind of accessibility, maybe than what you’re used to dealing with, with the vehicle design. Yeah, really fascinating work. I think that seques nicely into because Toyota is going through all of these shifts and retooling, what they’re all about. They’re answering the call to these bigger ideas that are floating in and around the world. We always ask our people that we’re interviewing, how does your work contribute to a healthier, more equitable, sustainable world? Definitely, we’ve got safety here. That’s lovely. So take us through your thoughts.

Haley: Toyota is really committed, and we see this in internal company messaging or just the projects that we all get to work on, and even, you can probably see it as a customer, in maybe commercials or whatever it is. But Toyota is really committed to contributing to the practical and sustainable development of society. We’re taking a really transparent and science-based approach to address climate change across every part of our company. So it’s not just our operations of our products, we’ll grow in harmony with the environment. Our commitment to vehicle electrification, I know that’s probably one of the big things that folks think of when they’re thinking about environmental, you know, causes within the automotive industry, you know, our commitment to that is just really one important element of our efforts to build the world a zero carbon future. We’re also challenging our suppliers and our dealers to minimize CO2 emissions and pushing towards carbon neutrality in our operations by 2035. So that’s coming up real quick, but we’re doing so much work to really charge forward in this mission. And in terms of, you know, in the crash safety world, kind of bringing it back to the things that I’m working on, my team is truly doing a lot of the work to develop our electric vehicles. So you can imagine a lot of things about the vehicle design are going to change when there’s a giant super heavy battery involved. And if you really think back to maybe even high school physics, force equals mass times acceleration, a heavier vehicle means more force and more energy to manage in a crash scenario. And so we really have to think differently about how we manage that energy and not only managing the energy, but we have to protect the battery itself in a crash event. Maybe you’ve seen different things on the news about what happens to batteries, maybe when they’re submerged in water, or in crashes and things like that. We definitely don’t want that happening to any of our customers. So those are all important things that we have to consider within the Crash Safety team.

Christa: Thank you. So, what people and organizations are important collaborators toward this brighter future?

Haley: Yeah, absolutely. I think in the battery space, we’re working with LG Energy Solutions, which is a really exciting collaboration. So they’ll actually be supplying our automotive battery modules to be used in our battery electric vehicles that are assembled in the US starting next year in 2025. And then again, you know, our suppliers and our dealers, we’re really challenging them to minimize CO2 emissions. So I think maybe some people forget that Toyota or any other automotive company, we don’t make every single part ourselves, right? We work with all these other smaller companies that create the seats or the steering wheels or the infotainment systems, and there’s, you know, hundreds and hundreds of suppliers that we work with to put together a vehicle. And so we’re working in leveraging those suppliers and challenging them to really move forward with us in this goal of minimizing CO2 emissions.

Traci: It’s really interesting that you even mentioned seat design, for example, is outsourced. I worked with a fellow in the past who was one of the, he was a designer, an engineering designer for the seats, and I never even thought about that before. But of course. His favorite was for long haul truckers because those seats have the hydraulics that move up and down with big load. It was really interesting work. You made me recall that important little bit.

Christa: Haley, in what ways do you anticipate AI impacting your work or the industry in the future?

Haley: Oh, that’s a good question. I think AI or even machine learning, those are just some popular buzzwords I think we’re all hearing lots about wherever industry you are, but particularly in the automotive of industry, in crash safety or maybe even in the broader evaluation or performance areas, like I mentioned before, strength or aerodynamics, or what have you. We actually see this internally in ways we’re leveraging it to create tools that actually help us make better predictions about the way, maybe a new vehicle or a new platform will perform under certain conditions. So kind of the thinking is that if we can evaluate performances early and virtually based on a previous vehicle’s performance, or maybe, like, screen a design with machine learning, we can improve our designs early, and then we can have a more efficient vehicle design cycle. And it also helps us kind of create a more robust design because we’re maybe picking out challenge points or something like that with these machine learning tools very early, and a lot of our engineers not only work on the performance aspect, but also they’re designing these tools themselves internal to the department. So it’s kind of a cool combination of, you know, if you are a mechanical engineer, for example, you can also flex your computer science or coding skills because you can create these tools that help not only you kind of improve designs or something like that, but those tools can also be applicable for other folks in your department. So we see that a lot definitely. But then in other areas, maybe we’re thinking of the more customer focused or software type, you know, AI applications. That’s definitely coming into play in automotive as well. So developing software that leverages AI to better serve our customers. We’re seeing things like that. Maybe the features that you see in your Toyota or Lexus apps, if anyone is a Toyota or Lexus driver with maybe a newer vehicle. They have some sort of AI or engine behind that, that’s been developed by our software company, Toyota Connected. And these products can help our customers schedule service or even kind of build up their next vehicle to their liking on the Toyota website, which are some cool ways. So there’s lots of AI really coming into play both internally to support vehicle development, and then also just simply in the products as you might maybe normally think of where you would see AI that are more customer facing like interfaces with our customers.

Traci: So many creative ways that the AI is being used, right?

Haley: Absolutely.

Traci: Early and eager adaptation or adoption, too, of all of these systems, and all the cautionary tales, but this seems like really appropriate ways to do early testing, as you were saying. It’s just amazing. There’s so many really great applications. I’m really interested in knowing your take then on, what do you recommend for others who want to go into this field? How do they get to this spot where you are doing so much good work?

Haley: Yeah, absolutely. You know, the automotive industry is rapidly changing, even at the Sears Society of Automotive Engineers Conference, which is held annually in Detroit, all of the branding is mobility and these kinds of wordings. You know, It’s not just an industry where, you know, you had to be as a child working in the garage with your parents and taking apart cars. You know, that’s really not the classic tale anymore of folks who are getting into the automotive or mobility industry. I think it’s a really exciting time to become involved because there are so many types of jobs for folks from all engineering backgrounds, mechanical, electrical, materials, chemical, biomedical, manufacturing engineering. There’s literally a place for you in multiple places actually for you within the automotive industry. And then, of course, there’s so much work outside of engineering. Maybe from like pure science and research, marketing, business, sales, strategy, purchasing, supply chain. There’s so so much within the automotive industry. Literally any educational background can land you in automotive. And so I think that’s a really cool time to be entering into this mobility sector. But really, maybe a little bit more specific to crash safety, the most common education is a four year degree in mechanical or biomedical engineering. Some companies prefer or require masters, but not at Toyota. But while in school, I’d really recommend getting involved in undergraduate research or a project team to get experience with project schedules, collecting data, analyzing that data. And really that collaboration with your peers or your research group is also really important experience. But crash safety, you know, I think I mentioned before, it’s a mix of virtual and physical testing. Obviously, the automotive companies don’t expect you to be crashing cars and analyzing that kind of data when you’re an undergrad. But something you can do to kind of give yourself a little bit of experience is at least maybe taking a course in finite element analysis or computer aided design, so either some FVA or CAD classes. But I know that also takes place outside of the classroom in some project teams. So that’s also some sort of little advantage to kind of just getting your toes wet in some of the technical aspects of this work that could be, you know, going on when you’re an undergrad.

Traci: That link to project teams is so important. For everybody who isn’t aware of our calendar, we’re recording this in the middle of May. We are just about to hit project team competition time and all their deadlines were recently in play. Your whole thing about project management of project cycles and keeping to those with your testing. Boy, I don’t think you could ring that one anymore, true. Far as campus experiences. But you’re right, the offices of undergraduate research and all of these project teams certainly feed into all those qualities you were talking about.

Christa: This is all excellent advice. And along these lines, what do you wish you knew when you were a sophomore?

Haley: Hm. That’s a good question. I think I wish I knew that everything would work out the way it’s supposed to. And I know it’s easy to say that, you know, in retrospect. But while you know, maybe if you’re a sophomore or junior, what have you listening, you can say, brush that off and say, hey, you don’t understand, I’m so stressed. I have all these classes, whatever. I was there, too. I get it. But, you know, really, I never even considered the automotive industry for a career, ever. Growing up in San Diego and then going to school in Ithaca, you don’t necessarily consider those two cities hubs of automotive activity. So I just had no exposure. I didn’t have any role models in the automotive industry. I didn’t even know that crash safety existed. But actually, a graduate TA of one of my classes encouraged me to go and talk to some of the companies at the Society of Women Engineers National Conference in 2017. So this was actually my junior year, or going into junior year, I suppose. So I was guess, a little bit late, so to speak, in my undergraduate career, to have an epiphany about what I want to do with my life. But she was at the time, like, the only woman TA that I’d ever had in a mechanical engineering course. So I really looked up to her, and, you know, she really, whether she knows it or not, that encouragement and literally grabbing me by the arm and saying, hey, like, go, go talk to these folks. Did you know that crash safety is a thing? And I said, No, I had no idea, she’s like, well, we’re both going to go learn right now. So we you know, walked up to booths and things like that. I had no idea what crash safety entailed, but, you know, I trusted her and, you know, took that leap of faith and had no idea that it would lead to all of this. But, you know, all that to say, you do end up, I think we’re supposed to. Maybe it’s not the career industry that you imagined early in your college career, but I think any career that you have, when you use your engineering degree is really guaranteed to impact the lives of others. You know, so if you’re a sophomore, a freshman or junior or, you know, senior, even listening, and you don’t quite know what you want to do yet, you know, I think just kind of find peace in the fact that you will get to somewhere where you’re supposed to be eventually. Maybe it’s not your perfect timeline. Maybe it’s not even your first job right at of undergrad. Maybe it’s not with the right company or, you know, something or the preferred company, so to speak. But I think eventually you will land where you are supposed to be.

Traci: Think your point is so great about the power of mentoring there. The vision of her grabbing you by the arm and let’s go talk to people in these booths, what a fabulously empowering moment and fun too. In that moment, she changed your whole life. It’s really important to understand we can be on both sides of that equation at any moment. A grad TA did that for you. That’s fabulous. In that same spirit, we like to ask folks, what class or classes had the greatest impact for you while you were still at Cornell?

Haley: Yeah, definitely. I think, you know, the biomedical engineering course work really diverges from the mechanical engineering or the rest of the engineering curriculum, you know, somewhere late sophomore year going into junior year, but really a lot of a lot of crash safety is pretty basic physics, plus some, you know, additional complications or what have you. So a lot of the foundation courses that I think most of us take during our first two years, basic physics, basic maths, and stuff. Those actually, just from a, you know, transferability perspective, those were the most tangible, I would say, I also took some materials engineering classes as a junior and senior. They were obviously very related to biomedical engineering. But I think being in those classes got me thinking about materials, how they affect, you know, the use case of that material or whatever the devices that material is making up. And then the performance of that biomedical device because of the material or something like that, which is really the same thinking way that we use in automotive. You know, is this material proper for this application in the instrument panel? Should we use something else or, you know, different energy absorption properties of different metals is also something we think about a lot, things like that. So, um kind of just some materials classes helped me get into that mindset, I would say. And so, you know, I hate to admit it, but I definitely did not go back to my school notes when I started at Toyota, but I can say that, you know, the courses built up my engineering mindset, and definitely those collaboration skills I talked a lot about. I’d say that communication is probably the number one skill I have to leverage on a daily basis. So I’m definitely, you know, still practicing and trying to improve upon that, but I do think that, you know, that’s a skill that we worked quite a bit on at Cornell and all of our group projects, or presentations or what have you. But then right behind that is probably being curious. I think being curious leads to asking good questions and asking questions leads to dialogue about you know, why a part was designed a certain way or why a certain material was chosen or why the result is the way it is. And then you kind of get into discussions from there. So I think you know, asking questions is super fundamental at Toyota. We encourage it all the time. And it’s part of vehicle development. It’s assumed that in every meeting you go to, there’s going to be a bunch of questions. So asking why just really helps us understand the true reason of, you know, why something is a certain way, not just taking something at face value. And I think I learned to be curious in my classes, especially those major specific junior senior classes, where we really dived into a lot of really, really cool topics. But also, you know, outside the classroom, I just want to touch on that because I think that the activities that I was involved in had almost an equal impact on me, and I really was involved in a lot of activities in undergrad, probably more than I should have. I did research, I was involved in SWE, Society of Women Engineers. I was a resident advisor, and the list goes on and on. But really these activities, I think, honed in those non technical skills, and also passions for, you know, serving others in my community. I think I really carry these experiences with me, even now. I really would just encourage every student to get involved with just something outside of the classroom. You know, it doesn’t have to be a project team. It doesn’t have to be research, but I think even a student group lets you develop those leadership skills and experiences, which is also super super important.

Christa: Indeed, Haley, you are clearly a curious and engaged learner. And excellent role modeling for those listening. So, where you are now in your career, where do you go to stay current for information?

Haley: There’s a lot of different sites dedicated to automotive information. Automotive News, for example, they’re based here in Michigan. They have you know, tons of articles coming out every day, whether it’s automotive “gossip” or actual information coming out. That is a very, you know, common source of information for folks in the auto industry. The Society of Automotive Engineers also has journals, they also have publications, things like that. So they have, you know, lots of presentations at the Society of Automotive Engineers conference that happens every single year. But then you can also, you know, get these passive resources through them, whether it’s journal or different research papers and things like that. So those are also good. But then if we want to get maybe more specific and be current on our actual Toyota customers, we get some information from consumer insights, which is another company that we work within all of really the automotive industry, leverages consumer insights. We launch a vehicle, for example, and then they gather lots of data on, you know, customer first impressions and things like that. And so we can take that customer feedback and whether that’s make an immediate improvement, you know, that might be something. But it’s more like improving the next generation of a vehicle, for example, based on that customer data.

Christa: So, are you still attending SWE conferences?

Haley: Oh, I am. Yes. I’m very fortunate that Toyota has been super supportive of sending lots of folks to SWE conferences. I’ve actually attended every year except COVID since I’ve been hired on, which has been lots of fun. I have actually spoken at SWE conferences since I was in college at Cornell, but I spoke with a group of other young professionals from Toyota at last year’s SWE conference. And then the previous year, my topic was a little bit more related to SWE activities and outreach and stuff, but it’s actually been lots of fun. I get to work the recruiting booth with other folks from all over Toyota North America, and also attend some really great sessions from other women in engineering industries.

Traci: Those conferences are so much fun. When I used to be at a university closer to Detroit, I would go to SAE. Then a lot of my executive ed students, participants there, were doing their presentations, so I’d get to go and watch and watch big. It was great. Yeah. It’s a great conference. Absolutely. SWE too, of course, but yes. We know that one’s awesome, too.

Haley: SWE is awesome. They just keep breaking records every year with attendance. This year, we’ll be in Chicago in the fall, which I think is going to be even bigger since there’s just so many solid engineering schools close to Chicago, so should be a fun one.

Traci: Who. So exciting. Yeah, maybe I’ll try it. Speaking of fun and being in a great city like Chicago, what do you like to do though for fun? It sounds like you’re way too busy to have outside activities, but of course you’re going to fit them in. And what do you do to have fun?

Haley: I think that’s the one thing that I prefer to, working full time than at college. When you working full time, you shut that laptop and you’re done. I know eventually maybe later in my career, maybe that might not be the case, but currently where I’m at, I get to be done on Friday and back Monday. But you know, I do lots of different things, and definitely having an engineering career helps you be able to do fun things outside of work with a, you know, solid salary and all those good things and all the benefits that you have. Definitely a big perk of being able to enjoy your free time. So I guess, I’ve been getting into golfing now that the weather’s warm. I grew up playing. I took a pretty big hiatus after high school, and I was in college. And then my husband, he just started playing as well. So now he’s like, super into it. He’s also an engineer. So you know, he’s always every single day, it’s a new thing. Oh, did you hear about this ball and why it’s, you know, shaped that way? Oh, do you hear how they, you know, design this, you know, golf club, all this stuff. You know, He’s got all the facts and figures and data. So he’s getting into that and really trying to become, you know, maybe we’ll see him on the PGA tour one day. I don’t know. I’m just kidding. But Michigan actually is really big for golf, which I didn’t realize. So we’ve been having a lot of fun, just checking out new courses and stuff and playing when we can. And just exploring, traveling is other, you know, kind of things I like to do. Michigan’s also very fun for, like, small towns and lake shore towns. You know, we’re surrounded by water. We also have so many lakes within the state, not just the big, great lakes. So there’s all these cute little spots around the state that are, pretty easy to drive through just for a weekend or even just a day trip. So that’s been a lot of fun since living here. And then I also, you know, maybe getting into my like, suburban adult life is getting outside in the yard and garden. Lots of adult hobbies, I suppose.

Christa: Adult hobbies. So If you weren’t doing this right now, you know, what might you be doing and is it something that maybe you considered as a child?

Haley: When I was a kid, my first exposure to quote engineering was maybe my first Lego League team. And I did not think that that was very cool. I was like, oh, I don’t know about this whole engineering thing. Is this all they do? They just, you know, I don’t know. I was totally not convinced at my first exposure. Eventually, I met my first biomedical engineer. You know, it’s kind of like meeting a celebrity when I was in high school, and so then that kind of led me to looking into the major and things like that. And then, you know, things went from there. But really, when I was younger, I didn’t I don’t know if I necessarily had decided engineering was for me until later in high school. But I think for a long time, I came from, you know, a family of educators. My mom was a teacher. My grandparents on both sides were teachers and professors, researchers. So I thought for a long time, maybe I’d, you know, be a STEM teacher or something like that. But, you know, maybe that’s what I thought it would be as a child. I don’t know if my memory is too strong, but I think eventually that’s something I’d still like to get back to. It’s still a passion I have kind of, you know, reaching the next generation. I know I’m not going to be the engineer that, you know, solves the greatest problems in crash safety or develops, like the most insane and awesome airbags or whatever. You know, that’s the next generation after me or maybe even the generation after that. The way that, you know, technology evolves at a snail’s pace, I suppose. So I think, you know, man, many, many, many years, after I retire from Toyota, I’d like to go back to teaching somewhere, maybe a community college, maybe a professor of practice, maybe even just, you know, high school or elementary school, whatever it may be, but, you know, maybe that aligns more, you know, with my childhood vision of my career, perhaps.

Christa: Those children would be fortunate to have you. In the meantime, we’re fortunate to have you in the role that you’re in.

Haley: Thanks.

Traci: I just Yeah, I love this whole thing that you have about you recognizing your mentors, right, and those people that were that the rock star bio engineering person at High School. And it’s just it’s so nice to hear it.

Haley: Yeah. I mean, it’s so important. I don’t think that any one mentor is going to be, you know, I mean, maybe my TA, for example, that was kind of a pivotal moment for me, but I think in general, mentors are kind of building upon each other. It’s the sum of all these interactions that you’ve had with other people. Like, you’re the product of all of the effort and time that other people have put in to you, and then you somehow become something later. And so I just think that it’s so important that when you get to that, whatever it may be, you, you know, go back to previous generation or, you know, younger people at your company or even peer mentoring, I think is so so valuable. And I don’t know. It’s just so important. I think we don’t, in college, maybe mentoring is not at top of mind, sometimes, but eventually, when you get into, you know, the real world, it becomes super super critical, I think.

Traci: Thank you so much for sharing all of your thoughts and wisdom and wonderfulness today.

Haley: Absolutely, any time.

Christa: Thank you for listening. If you are enjoying these conversations, please follow, rate, and review on your favorite platform. Join us for the next episode, where we will be celebrating excellence and innovation among engineers whose impact contributes to a healthier, more equitable, and more sustainable world.

Title: Behind the Scenes of Video Game Production: Jessie Yee ‘20

Christa Downey: Welcome to the Engineering Career Conversations. I’m Christa Downey, Director of the Engineering Career Center at Cornell University.

Traci Nathans-Kelly: And I’m Traci Nathans-Kelly, Director of the Engineering Communications Program. We are excited to bring you this forum, where we will host lively conversations that we hope will inspire you. Welcome, everybody to Engineering Career Conversations. We are so happy to be talking today to Jessie Yee, who graduated in 2020, majoring in Information Science and minoring in both film and game design. She is currently a producer at Archetype Entertainment for the Game Play team on Exodus, which is a new triple-A sci-fi action-adventure role playing game. If you want to know more about these projects and others that Jessie’s worked on, click on the link below in the show notes. Let’s get started. Well, Jessie, we’re so glad that you’re here with us today. And just to get a sense of what your work is and what it is that you’re up to, can you let us know about your current work, where you’re at? What does your day look like?

Jessie Yee: Yeah, for sure. So currently, I’m a producer for the gameplay team at my studio. So when I say gameplay, because our game is a triple-A Sci Fi action adventure role playing game, gameplay includes anything that the player has the ability to do, things that our enemies and our companions can do and how the fights are set up with the player, the enemies, and the companions, just as an example. So I get to work with people in disciplines across the company, so everyone from design, engineering, animation, audio, UI, character art, like the list really goes on.

Traci: How do you wrangle so many different people and experts? That seems hard to me.

Jessie: Yeah, I think a big part of the producer role really is, helping to facilitate conversation. So a lot of what I do is, you know, there’s a lot of meetings because I’m working fully remote. There’s a lot of messages that I have to go through, constantly, you know, switching between different types of conversations with different disciplines and different features. So there’s a lot of context switching in my job, but I think part of it is being very well organized, keeping track of, like, who is doing what, who is talking about what and who needs to be included in which conversations. So a lot of the time, you know, I kind of feel like an octopus. You just kind of have to manage a lot of stuff at once. I think part of it comes with just experience on the job. Some of it is just people who go into production, I think have a better tendency or have a tendency to enjoy that type of thing and to be able to keep many things spinning at once.

Traci: And so outline the difference for us between like a producer and like a project lead.

Jessie: Yeah. So I think when you think of the traditional roles like what is a project lead, a project manager, a product manager do versus a producer, the fun answer is that within game development, the term producer can kind of mean anything depending on the team and the specific project that you’re working on. So I tend to think of game producers specifically, which are different from like TV, film, or music producers. I think of game producers as either working generally with the developer or with the publisher. So the publisher producers, they could be doing things like working with platforms. So like Playstation or Xbox, they could be working with marketing teams, with localization. So if you’re going to publish a game in multiple different countries, you’ll have to translate text. You’ll have to maybe arrange things a little bit differently for the suitable audience in that area. But what I think most people will probably think of with game producers is working with the developer, which is what I do. So this is a lot closer to what I think people will think of when they hear the term like project manager, where there is an element of, you know, task tracking, road mapping, communicating with the team, kind of seeing what the status of the work is. But I think the difference is that for producers, you’re kind of more like what I would describe a deliverable lead or at least in most cases. It does still vary a bit studio a studio. But you’re more responsible, at least, like in my past experience for making sure the game gets out the door, so the company can keep the lights on and that you hit, you know, deadlines as you need to, but also really being like a servant leader and a supporter for the team. So, the interesting part about being a producer is that nobody actually reports to me, and I don’t actually manage anybody, but I have a responsibility to my team to help them work in like the healthiest and the most effective way possible.

Traci: Well, I like that you said the word healthiest or the phrase healthiest way possible. What does that mean for you?

Jessie: Yeah, so there is a common term that’s used in game development, which is crunch. So crunch is typically where, you know, you’re getting close to a deadline. People are working overtime. Sometimes it’s a lot of overtime in, you know, the span of a couple of days, sometimes it’s, you know, on the weekends. It depends a lot on the project and the team and how big the company is. There’s a lot of factors that can go into, you know, when and why a crunch happens. But typically when it happens throughout the industry, it’s close to a deadline like releasing of a game or releasing, like, a big expansion for a game. So when I think of healthy game development, a lot of it is, you know, there’s no way to predict the perfect roadmap for how everything is going to lay out, which I think a lot of people can relate to. But particularly with games, it’s harder because games as a product, you know, you can hit all of the beats that you lay out on paper, and you can achieve those goals on paper. But if you play it and it doesn’t feel good or it doesn’t feel fun, you have to keep iterating and you have to keep going. So there’s that component of, you know, like, if I’m sitting in a project manager role, and I say, we have A B and C done just as we had planned. It may not feel fun, and so we may have to keep working on the game if we want it to hit a certain quality bar. So, in general, I think that’s kind of what happens. There’s a lot of reasons that can contribute to a crunch. But my job in trying to help keep the team as healthy as possible is, you know, we can try to foresee as many of those things as possible. We can try to build in time for additional iteration. And just in case it doesn’t feel good, we need to have some more time to work things out. But it is a lot of constant problem solving to make sure that, you know, we’re not signing ourselves up for goals that are too lofty or too unachievable or that we’re not just constantly getting bombarded with feedback because it is a creative industry, and everybody has a lot of opinions.

Traci: Right, right, right. Thank you for that thorough answer. I love it. Love it.

Christa: Jessie, I love hearing all of this, and I’m curious to know how did you get there? I imagine we have many students who would love to learn more about a career, would love to explore a career in video game production. What advice do you have and what was your path?

Jessie: Yeah, that’s a great question. So for me personally, I always knew that I was interested in entertainment media. So I came into Cornell knowing that I wanted to pursue at least a film minor just because that was the main type of media that I was exposed to in an academic setting before college. And I had always loved playing video games, and, you know, you come to the end of a video game, and you’ll watch the credits roll, and sometimes there’s one name, sometimes there’s hundreds of names, similar to a movie. But I never really sat down to think, you know, there’s all these people who have jobs and careers that are working to put this, you know, product into the box that I ended up playing. So when I was at Cornell, you know, I took a bunch of film classes, but I actually had heard from a bunch of my friends who were all CS majors that they were taking this interesting elective that was about game development, which was not something that I think I had even realized was a course until I heard about it from my friends. So I decided to take the class. There’s the intro and the advanced class that I took each of. And in those roles, I was the design lead and the project lead. So I was very focused on doing the design and the art myself. And I didn’t really have a word for what I wanted to do. I didn’t really understand what production was. So in my senior year, as I was trying to figure out, you know, what do I want to do? I knew that I really loved the game development classes, but I actually didn’t want to be a designer or an artist. But I loved working with the team. I loved working with people who were doing those roles other than me, and I knew that I wanted to continue doing that. So I reached out to a lot of Cornell alumni, I think, mostly on LinkedIn, and I just asked them what they did in games and to try to see like what kind of career paths were out there. So I talked to everybody from marketing to narrative writing, to level design, to being more on like the business product development side. So I talked to a lot of different people. And basically, you know, I’d hear from them what they did for a living. A lot of them asked me, you know, what do you enjoy from your game development class that you’re doing? What do you enjoy from other classes that you have or, you know, your part time job when I was working on campus for a bit. And when I was explaining this to them, a lot of them pointed me towards production, just as a discipline and as a career path. So from there, you know, I started to connect with more producers, get a sense of like I mentioned, there’s a lot of different types of production. So just trying to get a sense of what does a producer role look like in a small company like in an indy studio versus a very large company. So what we think of as triple A. This is something like, you know, like Activision Blizzard, for example, is a really big and well known studio. So getting to talk to people from a variety of sources, and from there figuring out, what type of production role do I want to look for? Um, and actually, it was through one of those connections, one of the producers that I met that I found my way to my first role as an associate producer. So I guess my suggestion for anybody who is looking to go into games, especially if they’re not sure what aspect they want to go into, but they just know that they’re interested in games in general, or really for most entertainment media is to think about, you know, what are the aspects of the game that you really enjoy? Like, is it that you can really appreciate like a certain type of design, like you love level design. Maybe in your spare time, you even make your own levels, whether it’s for, you know, a video game online, whether it’s you’re making something yourself, whether it’s a board game. Think about the types of things that excite you and the work that excites you. And if you’re interested in production in particular, there’s actually a lot correlations that you can probably make to roles like project management, product management. So I would just advise you to take a look at, you know, what really excites you and what type of work do you want to do?

Traci: So I wanted to follow up on some of the things that you’re talking about here. You’ve done a lot of exploration of different roles and what you wanted, right? And tracing that path through it all. But what are some of the significant challenges that you’ve encountered and how did you overcome those along the way?

Jessie: Yeah, that’s also a great question. I think one of the biggest things is that, especially for someone, like I said, production is like a support role. So for people who tend to come into this role, I think there’s a lot of, you know, people pleasing that I want to do. You know, I want to be able to help everyone. I want to be able to make everybody’s lives better. But I can’t do that realistically for every single person, or at least, not to 110%. So I think one of the big things for me that I had to learn, throughout even college, and then in the industry myself is just figuring out how to do what my old boss called ruthless prioritization. Not only for my sanity at work and for the sanity of other people, but for my personal sanity as well. So when I say ruthless prioritization, a lot of it is, you know, there’s always going to be a million things to do, especially with games. You know, It is a form of art. So no art is really ever complete. This is how I usually think of I used to play the piano, and I would never feel like I was done finishing a piece. Whether I had already performed it in a concert or I was still, you know, going through hours of practicing it at home. It was never done because there was always something that I could do better. There was always something that I could make, you know, feel more lively, or I would always make a mistake in one particular section. So it’s kind of a similar thing with games where you can always improve it. There will always be bugs to fix. And there will always be ways to just tune things and make them just feel slightly better or just, you know, find more edge cases that you can address because it’s such an interactive medium. So when we prioritize things, when we prioritize work for the team, There’s a lot of saying, you know, like, which bugs are major. Which types of feedback from directors or leads are most important and will make the biggest impact on the game. Are they things that the team agrees with? And does the team feel like they have a clear path forward and the support that they need to actually accomplish all of that? And as a producer for a large team, you know, there’s a lot of requests that I will constantly get. There’s a lot of people who will message me, whether it is to ask for help on something specifically or to just keep me in the loop and keep me in there for visibility. So I’m constantly having to, you know, read messages, to sit in meetings, to read e mails, things like that. And for myself, I can’t get to every single message right away. I can’t sit in multiple conversations simultaneously. But what I can do is you know, get better at understanding, what is the context of the current conversation? Do I need to be in here right now and is there somebody else who can help out with this at the moment? And so sometimes what I end up doing is making sure that the right people are in the conversation. They have that conversation together with each other. And I can help follow up with any decisions or action items as need be. And usually, you know, I do love getting a chance to actually sit in and understand the nitty gritty, but I can’t be everywhere at once.

Traci: Well, I don’t think you’d want to be everywhere at once, right? That would be draining all of your precious energy. I like that ruthless prioritization idea as well.

Jessie: All the credit for that goes to my last lead.

Traci: It’s a great way to think about what should I do today? You know, even day to day, let alone a long term project. It’s really fantastic idea.

Christa: Yeah, I love how you think about your work and your responsibility to your team and to the projects. You spoke before. You mentioned servant leadership. Can you speak a little bit more about that?

Jessie: Yeah, so when I say servant leader, in my mind, a lot of this kind of comes back to that support role. So in video game terms, I also like to think of production as a support role, where, you know, sometimes if you’re playing a game, there might be somebody who is you know, specializing in fighting, specializing in magic. And usually there’s also a support role if you’re playing in a group or any sort of game that involves a group, where there’s somebody who might provide buffs to the rest of the team or heal the rest of the team. And I think of servant leadership as kind of, you know, the same analogy where my role is to help the team, and like I said, nobody manages nobody reports up to me. So I’m nobody’s lead. When you’re a producer, you can be a lead for other producers beneath you. So if you’re like a senior, you can be a lead to somebody who’s more mid or associate level. But really, my role is, like, you know, I’m working with a large team, in this case, like the gameplay team, and I have to kind of support them wherever I can. But that is my role is to be like their supporter. It isn’t, you know, to manage them career wise or to manage them personally. There are always going to be, suggestions that I give out to the people who are their leads, where I might, you know, from a project management standpoint, say that, you know, certain people are working on certain topics. But really, we have a higher priority feature to work on. So I might suggest that we move, an engineer from one feature to another feature, at least for the current month that we’re working in. But I’m never going to be the one who is, like, you know, fully dictating, especially from a creative standpoint, like, we should do this to tune, you know, how the enemy is currently appearing in the game or how it’s currently behaving.

Christa: Yes. What are the most common questions that you get from students who want to enter this field?

Jessie: I think one of the first ones is, for anybody I talk to, who is interested in production, usually I will ask them back is, what makes you interested in production? Just to kind of get a better sense of what they’re really looking to do? And they’ll usually reflect back to me, what is it that you do in production? So I think one of the most common questions from them is just, well, you know, how is this very different from project management? Like what are the other types of things that you do that make you not just a project manager? And like I mentioned, there are aspects of that, but I think it’s I think it’s understanding that I really also can do anything else that it takes to support the team. So like, for example, at my last company, I wasn’t just working with the development team. One thing that we needed to do as well because we were working on a game within the Alien IP is that I got a chance to be the liaison with Disney and Walt Disney games, and making sure that with Alien as a large IP, you know, that is spanning decades, movies, books, comics, et cetera, making sure that whatever we were doing was in line with the IP, that we had this comfortable back and forth. We had a good relationship with the and that they were, you know, also champions of whatever it is we were doing, because whatever we were going to put out would then become part of the larger Alien cannon. So I guess, like, you kind of go back to your question of what types of questions that people ask me. It’s kind of also explaining to them that, you know, your job may not include something like working with Disney, but it might. And it depends on what you’re up for, what you’re interested in, what you have the opportunity to do. But I think as long as you can kind of find that interest in somebody who wants to be a producer, then they’re probably going to be a good fit, and they we’ll have a bit more direction in terms of what types of production roles they’ll look for.

Christa: So along those lines, what do you wish you knew when you were a sophomore?

Jessie: So one thing that I wish I knew is that because there are so many different classes at Cornell, I wish I got to really sit down and look more at the list to see what I was interested in. So like I mentioned with the game development courses, this wasn’t something that I had stumbled upon, you know, just in looking at the class roster, but it was something that my friends had told me about. And while I did try to branch out of my majors and my minors to kind of find more, you know, out there classes to take and to just expand my field of knowledge. I wish that I took advantage of that opportunity even more, especially, you know, from a sophomore level, getting to have maybe one or two more years within Cornell, maybe further if you decide to stay on for other programs. But really taking advantage of that and using it to the best of my ability.

Traci: There’s so much offered, right? Any campus. With my own child finishing up their first year, every time I open the roster to help them choose their next class, I’m like, Oh, I want to take that. I want to take that. Yeah, and that. And that one, too. It’s amazing.

Jessie: Yeah, but I really do feel like, I think I got the advice a lot before I went into college that, you shouldn’t stick with your major in particular, necessarily. You should really try to push yourself and see what’s out there. And I think at the time when I came in as a freshman, I was saying, well, you know, I know exactly what I want to do. And some people, they do know at that age, and they know exactly what field they want to work in after college as well. But in my case, you know, I actually started out as a math major before I transitioned to information science. And then, you know, as I learned more about games, I actually took on the game design minor. And that actually opened me up to a lot of different other courses that I didn’t know existed. So there’s, like, creative character design, which was a fantastic class, and which I probably would have never heard of if I had initially just stuck with being a math major.

Traci: And that leads us beautifully into the question that we wanted to ask about what classes or classes had the most influence on you. And I’m not trying to put my thumb on the scale here. Because I’ve worked with Jessie in classes before, but you were just talking about the character development class, and tell us about other ones that you enjoyed.

Jessie: For sure. So I think yeah, the clear answer is the intro and the advanced game development courses. I’ll talk about it briefly, too, just because I think, you know, this is really what gave me the bird’s eye view of what it takes to actually make a game from start to finish. And it does follow, you know, a lot of the processes that, you know, most game studios do, just on a much smaller scale. So in some ways, I think of it as, you know, like a baby version of what I ended up experiencing in the industry. And I’m not always, you know, when you come into a game project in any role in the industry, I’m not always going to be a part of every single decision from beginning to end in the same way that I was in the game classes, just because, you know, you’re working with a smaller group, I think it’s something like five to eight people, depending on your group size over the course of about six months, like in one semester. So it really gave me like a sense of, okay, you know, a lot of us are on the design side. There’s people in the team who are on the software side. How do we work together? When do I need to inform them of other things. So there was a lot that it actually did teach me that translated very directly into my role. But I think in terms of other impactful courses, like I mentioned, I really loved the film courses that I took. I think one thing that was really valuable was that I realized that I really loved film studies. And I did take a couple of classes where we were doing things like editing, directing, but I actually found that I didn’t enjoy doing that myself, and I didn’t want to be a screenwriter or an actor, either, but I really wanted to write papers about it. And I think that kind of line of thought also led me to production because I love getting to work with people who are developers, but I don’t actually have an interest in doing the development myself. I might do a little bit here and there from my free time, but it’s not anything that I would ever, you know, go out and actually publish or to create myself necessarily.

Christa: It’s such a great example of finding your way into an industry that you love, into a world where you want to be in it and make an impact, and also finding the perfect fit for your skill set.

Jessie: Yeah. I think a perfect storm of things that all led me to my current role.

Christa: Where do you go to stay current? In this line of work in this industry.

Jessie: So I think with games, the fun thing is that one of the major ways is just by playing video games myself. You know, in some industries, in order to get to know your co workers, you might do things like you might keep up on sports. You may go and play golf with them yourselves. But in my case, I might just play video games myself. I might play them with my co workers, with my friends or with my old co workers. But when a game does come out, you know, that’s really big, similar to, like a blockbuster movie, I want to be able to talk to my co workers, not just about, you know, like, what the story is, what I’ve heard other people doing, but what my actual experience was firsthand. So the fun thing is to stay current is, you know, really just playing video games. Sometimes it’s like the big blockbuster ones, like I mentioned, and sometimes it’s working on smaller things that are for a more niche audience or in a genre that most people are not really interested in. But there will always be things that you can learn from it. And there might be co workers that I know that are specifically interested in a certain genre that I can talk to them about. But I think other ways to stay current, you know, are also just talking to other game developers. There’s a lot of different communities out there. There’s a lot of them that are centered around, you know, maybe certain interests in games and groups that people identify with more closely together. I’m in a couple that are focused on game production as a discipline, which is exciting to, you know, get a chance to talk to people who are interested in production, who maybe want to switch careers into it or want to start the careers there, or who have even been in game production for a really long time. And then I think at large, there’s a lot of events that you can attend, whether virtually or in person. So there are conventions. You know, I think a lot of people have heard of things like Comic Con, but there are conventions that are a bit more focused on games and game development. So, for example, there is PAX, which has an East and a West location throughout the year. I actually went to PAX East when I was at Cornell, with a bunch of friends and the club on campus. But there are also things like GDC, which is the game developers conference that are a bit more tailored to the actual developers behind the games, as opposed to just, you know, fans and players and a mix of developers. And a lot of those events like GDC, will post video recordings of the talks that they have. And a lot of other conferences that are worldwide like women in games or IGDA, which is the International Game Developers Association. A lot of them will also post talks, whether they’re more lecture focused, they’re career panel focused, they’re Q&A. And so I think a lot of those are good resources to just kind of keep up with what’s going on more in the industry level side.

Christa: And I imagine our listeners can follow along on social media, many of these things that you’ve mentioned. And I’m wondering, would it makes sense for a student or a young person in their career to attend, say, for example, women in gaming conferences?

Jessie: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of great opportunities, especially if you think you’re interested and you may think that you’re interested in a certain field or you have no idea which field that you’re interested in. I think it’s a great way to, you know, get to know people. A lot of people like to talk about what they do and to talk about themselves. And I think especially in games, what I found is everybody is so passionate about working in games. Otherwise, they could probably just work for none other software company or some other form of media. But if you’re in games, it’s probably because you really love it. You love playing games. You love making them. And so I think it’s a great way to, you know, not just connect with people in an industry you might be interested in, but also to just connect with other gamers and to, you know, make friends and make connections who you may also just want to play games with.

Traci: So I’m going to ask a hard one, maybe. If you weren’t doing this work, if you weren’t doing this, Jessie, what would you be doing instead?

Jessie: Oh. So I think I have maybe a couple of different answers. So if I weren’t in games, I think I still would be interested in a form of production, but maybe for a different entertainment medium. So I love film, for example, I might want to try you know, being a film producer or even theater and being a theater producer, which I think is quite different from being a game producer. And if I weren’t a producer at all, but I were still involved with games, I think I would probably want to be really involved with diversity and inclusion efforts. So one of the things that I was actually most proud of from my first job, you know, aside from us getting the game out the door, was actually being a part of the diversity and inclusion team. So one thing that we got to do, that was a really fun opportunity was we worked with this great organization called Game Heads for two summers in a row, which is focused on, you know, engaging and training, low income youth and youth of color, specifically for careers in tech and careers in the games industry. And the students we had in the career panel were fantastic. They asked a lot of really insightful and engaging questions. And I remember coming out of those events and talking to the devs who were on the career panel after, and everybody was so energized and so excited by the experience that I would love to be able to, you know, do more of that, too. But I think, if I had to choose something that really wasn’t production or in games at all. My favorite concentration when I was at Cornell, actually, within information science was on ethics law and policy. So I did consider for a hot minute potentially going to law school. And I did end up working with licensing and stuff in my job, but in a much different way.

Christa: We hear some negative things about gaming, right? A some of the games that are out there and experiences people have, particularly those who might be more vulnerable here in real life, often find themselves vulnerable in the gaming world. And so what does that look like? What conversations? What’s happening to address this?

Jessie: Yeah, that’s a great topic, too. I think a lot of it, you know, within entertainment media in general to kind of step back from games, you see the product that will end up on the movie theater screen or that’ll end up, like on the game disc that you bring home. And sometimes there are things within the end product, where like you mentioned, it may not feel like people are all being treated the right way within the game itself, whether it’s like on the scale of characters, or it’s the way that the world is built in the game. But I think a lot of it also has to do with the behind the scenes, kind of like you were alluding to, where, you know, when you take a look at who are the names on the list of credits, when you finish the game and the credits role, and, you know, how diverse of a team that might be, who might have had input in the design, or who might have had input in, you know, all of the different steps along the way. I think part of what we can do to address that is similar to I think what is going on in tech in general is to focus on how we can build people up who may be in less opportunistic places, but who may be interested in games or, you know, tech in general. So for example, with the Game Heads group that I mentioned, working with people who may be interested in a career there, but who may not necessarily know like what discipline they want to work in or just, you know, they may know what discipline they want to work in, but they don’t know where to find the training for it. They don’t know, how can I just reach out to people in the industry and get connections that way. So I think there’s a lot of things that you can do. There’s a lot of organizations that are focused on, you know, whether it’s kids who are in lower age groups, like in middle school, kids that are in more of like what we think of as like the older teenager, like young adult kind of age who are interested in getting into games and making sure that there is opportunity for people to really learn about what they want to do and really learn, what it truly is like to work in the games industry from a younger age. So I think that’s also why, for the game classes I had at Cornell, I was still in the age where You know, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and I was very lucky to have the opportunity at Cornell to even take a course where you are going to make a game in the first place. And that’s something that I would love to help provide to other people so that, you know, we can end up in a future where if I’m sitting in meeting, I may not be the only woman in the room, I may not be the only person of color in the room.

Christa: Another question. I think our final question, perhaps, what do you do, Jessie, to relax, have fun, re energize, and maybe rest your eyes a bit.

Jessie: Yeah, I mean, I guess to your last point, I would normally say video games, but because I work fully remote, that involves a lot of staring at the screen. So I think, you know, the main thing for me is I’ve played piano since I was little. I’m not doing it as intensely as I used to, but I am doing it more like for myself and for fun. And I find that this is a great way where I literally cannot look at an electronic device if I’m playing the piano, and I have to force myself, you know, to really be there in the moment. I have to give it all of my attention, or else, I’m not going to, you know, play the right note. It’s not going to come out the proper way. So I really like that playing the piano has now for me become a way to relax and have fun, but also is a forcing function where I cannot be at my desk, I cannot be looking at my phone or checking messages from my friends or getting lost in, you know, going down rabbit holes and stuff on the internet. So I think playing the piano has been a really nice kind of safe haven away from you know, separating myself from work, especially because I work at home. And similarly, you know, getting a chance to just actually go out and, like, explore different neighborhoods, explore different parts of the city, especially because I’ve been moving around the past couple of years. But really, you know, getting a chance to really force myself to not look at a computer, to not look at my phone, and to be a lot more present.

Christa: Many of our guests mention music with that question. We have one guest from last season who is a mechanical engineer who designs pianos. You might want to listen to that episode.

Jessie: I actually did listen to that episode. I thought it was really cool.

Traci: Jessie, thank you so much for all of your time today. This has been just so refreshing to be able to hear how well you’re doing at work after not seeing you in class for a couple of years. More than a couple of years. And we’re so glad that you were able to take time to be with us today.

Jessie: Yeah, thank you so much for inviting me. It’s been a pleasure.

Christa: Thank you for listening. If you are enjoying these conversations, please follow, rate, and review on your favorite platform. Join us for the next episode, where we will be celebrating excellence and innovation among engineers whose impact contributes to a healthier, more equitable, and more sustainable world.

Title: From Engineer to Music Executive, Educator, and Author: Howie Singer ’77, ’79

Christa Downey: Welcome to the Engineering Career Conversations. I’m Christa Downey, Director of the Engineering Career Center at Cornell University.

Traci Nathans-Kelly: And I’m Traci Nathans-Kelly, Director of the Engineering Communications Program. We are excited to bring you this forum, where we will host lively conversations that we hope will inspire you.

We are very excited to welcome to our studios today, Howie Singer, an expert on the implications of new technology in the music industry. In 15 years at Warner Music Group, he served as SVP and Chief Strategic Technologist, analyzing services and companies that could enhance or threaten Warner Music Group’s businesses. As a strategic consultant to Universal Music Group, MQA Limited, and other startups, he currently advises on products, services, and technologies related to high-res music, artificial intelligence, podcasts, and streaming data analysis.

We welcome Howie to the studios. Thank you so much for being with us here today. We’re so glad to meet you. We like to start off each of these interviews by asking: where are you at now? What kind of work are you invested in right now? Then we’ll work backward in time as we go forward through this interview.

Howie Singer: Well, I guess it’s appropriate that we’re doing this from the campus of Cornell because after many years in business, I’m back being an academic. Not that I ever really was—I was a student, certainly—but I am an adjunct faculty member in the NYU Music Business program, teaching data analytics, which is a required class if you want to get a degree in music business at NYU. Data is part of every role just about in the music business, which is a change from when I joined the industry.

In addition, I do consulting work. These days, it’s all about AI. No great surprise because I can’t even keep up with the Google alerts each day with the stories about AI, and I’m just focusing on the effect on the creative industries—music, books, movies, etc. And that’s a long list to just keep up with these days.

And then the third thing, and it’s part of the reason that I’m here, is that when we locked down for COVID—I guess that still counts as recent history, even though it seems like just yesterday and not four years ago—I started working on a book based on the things I had learned in the music business and other research going back to the start of the recorded music business. So, I’m an author as well.

Traci: Well, I like that trifecta of abilities.

Howie: And I like to say I’m semi-retired, so that I’m busy but not trying to work full time.

Traci: It’s a great way to organize your days, right? To be partially retired. You don’t have to do anything.

Howie: Other than showing up for the class where my students are at NYU, that is true.

Christa: Maybe let’s talk about your book then. Do you want to tell the audience about it?

Howie: Sure. I’d be happy to. The name of the book is Key Changes: The Ten Times Technology Transformed the Music Industry. The conventional wisdom that I lived through was that the music industry was humming along profitably, ever so profitably, because of the compact disc, which was introduced in the ‘80s and hit peak revenues in 1999.

And something else happened in 1999—some students on campus at Northeastern introduced Napster, which caused an enormous shockwave through the industry and very large declines in revenue. The story was that this was unique to a point in time, but it really wasn’t. The music industry has always lived on the knife’s edge of technology and business and has often been disrupted when new technologies emerged. Like many businesses, not just music, it had trouble adapting to these changes.

That’s what my co-author Bill Rosenblatt and I explore in the book—how different formats have shaped the industry. We cover phonographs, vinyl, tapes, downloads, streaming, and even artificial intelligence. Each chapter dives into how these technologies coalesced into new formats and how that change affected the rest of the business.

For example, songs are shorter today, and the chorus comes earlier. That’s because of how payments work in streaming, which is now the bulk of the revenue for the music business. Streaming services pay when a song is played for at least 30 seconds. If someone skips at 15 seconds, it doesn’t count. But at 31 seconds, it registers as a play. So, to ensure people listen long enough, artists put the hook or chorus right at the beginning.

That’s just one example, but these shifts have happened over and over—from the earliest recording formats to MTV to the streaming era.

Traci: I’m completely taken in by that—how a simple shift in the pay structure shapes the way songs are written.

Howie: Right. We explore how new distribution channels, revenue models, fan engagement, and even laws and regulations all evolve with these industry shifts. For example, Napster was sued, just like today we have lawsuits against AI companies over unauthorized use of content for training models. These patterns repeat over time.

Traci: It’s really fascinating. We wanted to ask about the biggest challenge you’ve faced along the way to get you where you are today.

Howie: The biggest challenge for me was transitioning from a traditional engineer to a music industry executive. That was a big change.

If you had told me the day I walked onto this campus to enter the PhD program in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering—which today is called Information Engineering—that I would someday be talking to Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin about file sharing, I would have said, “You’re crazy!”

But it was a gradual shift. I started out working on traditional OR problems—routing robots in factories, scheduling employees in call centers. Nothing to do with music. I was just a fan.

Then, in the mid-’90s, technologies started enabling digital music distribution. I was at Bell Labs and AT&T—logical places to explore businesses that could be conducted over networks. AT&T had a history of inventing technologies that played into the music industry, like better microphones, sound for movies, and even audio compression, which became the heart of the MP3.

We tried to build a business around secure digital music distribution. We were too early. Networks were slow—it took 15 minutes to download a song! The music industry wasn’t interested because CDs were incredibly profitable.

That startup eventually folded, but my experience positioned me to land a role at Warner Music leading their future technologies team. That was the start of my career in the music industry.

Traci: I have to say, I’m a little jealous!

Christa: I love hearing how you embrace change. Your book shows how technology’s influence in music can teach lessons across industries. We have many student entrepreneurs on campus—what insights would you share with them about adopting new technology?

Howie: Change is hard. Convincing those benefiting from the current system to make a change is even harder. Often, businesses won’t switch until they see their current model start to fray. That’s true across industries—look at Netflix disrupting traditional movie studios.

For entrepreneurs, one lesson is: If people don’t “get it,” that’s on you. If your audience isn’t understanding your pitch, find a better way to explain it.

Traci: That’s so important. Engineers need to be great communicators.

Howie: Absolutely. My ability to explain tech concepts to music executives—who knew everything about signing artists but nothing about digital music—was key to my career. If you can’t clearly explain your idea, it won’t go anywhere.

Title: Renewable Energy, Mentorship, and Global Impact with Tamir Lance ‘04, ‘05

Christa Downey: Welcome to Engineering Career Conversations. I’m Christa Downey, Director of the Engineering Career Center at Cornell University.

Traci Nathans-Kelly: And I’m Traci Nathans-Kelly, Director of the Engineering Communications Program. We are excited to bring you this forum, where we will host lively conversations that we hope will inspire you.

Tamir Lance is RD&D Module Product Development Manager at Maxeon Solar Technologies. He’s currently based out of Singapore. He completed his bachelor’s degree at Cornell in mechanical engineering in 2004 and went on to do his master’s at Cornell in 2005. We had a fascinating conversation with him covering how teams work globally, working in the renewable energy field, looking for jobs and internships while you’re still a student, networking, the positive impacts of a diverse workforce, and how AI is impacting his industry. Stay tuned for this wonderful conversation.

Christa: All right, Tamir, good to see you here. Can you tell us a little bit about your current work?

Tamir Lance: Sure. I’m a senior engineering manager at Maxeon Solar, based out of the Singapore office right now, but I manage a team both in Singapore and in San Jose. My group is responsible for designing all of the solar panels that Maxeon produces in one of our product lines.

Christa: Excellent. Did you set out to have an international career?

Tamir: I did not. After I graduated from Cornell, I knew I wanted to head over to the West Coast. I was following my girlfriend, now wife, at the time—or girlfriend at the time, now wife. And I did want to work in the renewable space, but at the time, wind energy was big, but that was more in the Midwest, and solar hadn’t quite taken off yet.

I didn’t get started in solar renewables until about 2008. I joined a startup, actually, that had a founder from Cornell. That’s how I met him, at a Cornell event. Since then, I was working out of the San Jose office, and this opportunity to move to Singapore kind of fell into my lap, which was great because my wife was wanting to do something international. So it was a great opportunity, and our daughter was young enough—at a good age to travel. So that’s how it ended up, and I’ve found myself in Singapore for three years so far.

Traci: So I’m gonna have a two-part question here because I have a follow-up about working in engineering teams internationally. But I just wanted to start with, what does your day look like—a normal day, if there is such a thing?

Tamir: Well, I probably wake up earlier than my wife would want me to. The problem with working internationally is obviously dealing with time zones. I think a lot of industries have changed because of COVID and working remotely, so we got a flavor of this even before I left for Singapore.

We have teams in Europe, California, and Mexico, and we have factories in Asia. So there’s this pressure to always be on, even though we try to set boundaries. Typically, my first meetings in the morning start around seven or so. I just get up and take them on the porch or something. I don’t try to be at the office before seven. I’m usually taking calls while getting my daughter ready for school—getting her breakfast, brushing her hair, and being on conference calls.

There’s a limited window every day when it’s not too late on the West Coast and not too early in Asia. So you try to get those meetings out of the way between 7 and 9 AM. I’m usually on the phone while commuting to work. Then there’s a break to deal with colleagues in Asia. By the late afternoon, Europe comes online, and I start taking those meetings.

I also try to balance family life—picking up my daughter after school and making sure I’m present at home. There are a lot of tools that allow for asynchronous work, like Teams, so you don’t always have to be on the phone. If something urgent happens, though, the West Coast starts waking up around 10 PM my time. But I try to keep normal business hours because if you’re always on, you start making bad decisions due to lack of sleep.

Traci: That’s a really good point, Tamir. People think it’s so admirable to be available 24/7, but I see what you see—you start making bad decisions when you’re tired or irritated at the end of the day.

Tamir: Yeah, you send the email you shouldn’t have, or you’re a little more curt than you wanted to be. You might set the wrong tone in a text. You have to be careful about that.

Traci: Absolutely.

Tamir: Stay healthy.

Traci: And I know that you also have some interesting work with mentoring younger engineers and supporting global teams. Can you walk us through some of that?

Tamir: Yeah, that’s a good point. My team is fairly young. I’m only in my early 40s, and most of my team is in their early 30s. Some came from different industries, and others are fresh out of grad school. I’m not just responsible for the products but also for their career development.

Maxeon puts a lot of emphasis on individual development plans. Outside of yearly or quarterly goals aligned with company objectives, we set additional career development goals. We follow a 70/20/10 rule—70% hands-on work, 20% formal education, and 10% research or conferences.

It’s crucial for young engineers to get hands-on experience. Since my research team isn’t located near our factories, we make time for them to visit and see firsthand how their designs get built. It helps bridge the gap between research and manufacturing.

A challenge with mentoring today is that so much work is remote. You don’t just walk over to a coworker’s desk anymore. You have to make a concerted effort to ensure people don’t get lost and stay motivated. We put a lot of stock in mentoring young engineers because if we don’t continuously renew the talent pool, we lose valuable knowledge as experienced engineers retire.

Christa: I appreciate that you put that effort into mentoring. It’s huge and needed. What would you say to sophomores and juniors just starting internships, especially on hybrid or remote teams? How can they best position themselves for learning and contribution?

Tamir: That’s a great question. The most important thing you can do is find a mentor. Whether or not your company has a formal mentorship program, you have to advocate for yourself. Be curious, ask questions, and seek out people who can help.

If you’re lucky, the person who hired you will guide you. But often, hiring managers are busy and don’t think about internships again until the interns arrive. Some companies set up structured programs, so during interviews, ask if they do and what’s expected of you.

Once you’re there, don’t assume people will do things for you. Everyone is overworked. You might have to fight for attention, but most people are happy to talk about their work. If you’re introverted, you can ask questions via email or text. The method doesn’t matter as much as making the effort.

Traci: As an extreme introvert, I appreciate that answer so much. We live in an extrovert’s world, and it’s great to acknowledge that different approaches work.

Tamir: Exactly. I wouldn’t hold it against someone for emailing instead of walking up to me, but you still have to make the effort. Most people will respond.

Traci: Absolutely.

Christa: Tamir, this has been a fantastic conversation. Thank you for sharing your insights.

Tamir: Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed talking to both of you and reflecting on my career.

Traci: Thank you so much for your time today. It’s been fascinating to hear about your experience working internationally and balancing family and work.

Tamir: Thanks, thanks.

Christa: Thank you for listening. If you are enjoying these conversations, please follow, rate, and review on your favorite platform. Join us for the next episode, where we will be celebrating excellence and innovation among engineers whose impact contributes to a healthier, more equitable, and more sustainable world.

Title: From Nuclear Science to STEM Entrepreneurship: Dr. Jarvis Sulcer MS ‘95, Ph.D. ‘98

Christa Downey: Welcome to Engineering Career Conversations. I’m Christa Downey, Director of the Engineering Career Center at Cornell University.

Traci Nathans-Kelly: And I’m Traci Nathans-Kelly, Director of the Engineering Communications Program. We are excited to bring you this forum where we will host lively conversations that we hope will inspire you.

We had the wonderful opportunity to visit with Jarvis Sulcer, who is the co-founder and COO at Lingo Solutions Incorporated. He earned both his master’s and his PhD in nuclear science and engineering at Cornell. Join us as we learn about his educational journey, his path to being an entrepreneur, and how he gives back to his communities each and every day.

Christa: Jarvis, hi. It’s great to see you here.

Jarvis: Yes, glad to be here. Looking forward to this opportunity to share a little of my story.

Christa: I’m excited to share your story. I love what you are building, and I think we’d like to start with you telling us about your current work. And then also, what does that look like day-to-day and perhaps what motivates you day-to-day?

Jarvis: Great question. I’m currently the co-founder and COO of Lingo Solutions, Inc., an AdTech startup that develops a coding kit that empowers students to build at home or in the classroom. It comes not only with a coding kit, the hardware piece, but also with step-by-step instructional videos that allow students who have no prior experience—or even teachers who have no prior experience in coding electronics—to get introduced through hands-on, real-life applications of different technology.

So day to day, even though my title is co-founder and COO, as you know, at a startup of any type, you wear multiple hats. For me, the biggest hat I wear is B2B sales and business development. My title doesn’t reflect what I’m primarily responsible for, which is driving revenue and new business opportunities from a B2B standpoint.

My day looks like following up with customers, engaging new partners that align with our mission and values, leading my small but powerful sales team, and having ongoing communication with my founder and CEO, Aisha Bowe, on a day-to-day basis. And then, of course, engaging with our customers. That’s what drives any business—customer engagement, follow-up, and ensuring they’re having a great experience. I also make sure my team has what they need to be successful—and then get out of the way.

Traci: That sounds like you have a lot going on all the time.

Jarvis: Yeah, and it’s fun. I didn’t say what motivates me, right? I left that part out. For me, what motivates me more than anything is the impact on the lives of the students we serve through our partners.

Our partners include corporations that want to do community engagement, schools and school districts that want to engage their teachers and students, and nonprofits that may not have a STEM component or may want to add Lingo to their portfolio of offerings. For me, it’s the opportunity to play a role in transforming a student’s life—putting them on a different trajectory.

They may have been intimidated by coding, computer science, or tech, and then they get a chance to build something from scratch with no prior experience. Then they see the backup sensor for a car beeping and working, and they say, I did that. Three hours ago, they had no idea what a conditional loop was in coding or what an ultrasonic sensor is, but now they’ve built something, tested it, and made it work.

That aha moment is what drives me every day. And it’s not just for students—teachers experience the same thing. They may be intimidated by tech, but we help turn that around. That’s what keeps me moving forward despite all the challenges that come with my role.

Traci: It sounds like so much fun. I coached a Lego robotics team at my kids’ grade school, and a lot of what you’re saying resonates—kids saying, Oh, I’ve never done this before and then diving in. I really get a sense that that’s what you’re trying to help people do here.

Jarvis: Yes, it is. That’s at the core of why we started Lingo. We wanted to provide students—especially those who may not have access to these opportunities—with hands-on experience in both hardware and software. Everything today is driven by the combination of those two.

People don’t always think about it, but when they back up a car and hear that beeping sound, it’s not just hardware. That little dot on the bumper is part of a system where software plays a critical role. So, we want students to make those connections and realize, I can do this.

Traci: That aha moment is what keeps so many educators going. Since you’re working with businesses, schools, and nonprofits, I imagine your day is never really the same. What does a normal day look like—if there is such a thing?

Jarvis: A normal day starts with looking at my calendar and following up with customers. That’s a constant—checking in, following up, and engaging with leads. I go through the normal sales motions, but at the core, I see my role as solving problems.

Many of our partners are looking for solutions to challenges they face. I believe what we offer isn’t just a vitamin—it’s a painkiller. A vitamin is something you should take, but a painkiller is something you need.

For many organizations, students, and teachers, Lingo is a painkiller. Schools need ways to engage students in STEM, teachers need support, and corporations want to give back to the community in meaningful ways. My job is to ensure we position Lingo in a way that meets those needs.

Beyond sales, I handle operational tasks, work with my team to ensure they have what they need, and deal with challenges as they arise. It’s a lot of work, but it’s fun. This isn’t just a gig for me—it’s my passion.

Christa: We spoke a few weeks ago, and I learned more about what you’re building. I wish every student had access to something like this. You’re working through different channels to get this out there. What’s been the most significant challenge you’ve faced?

Jarvis: That’s a great question. On the student side, one of the biggest challenges is getting them to believe that they can. Many students have experienced failures or challenges that make them hesitant to try something new. Building their confidence is critical.

The same goes for teachers. They have so much on their plates already, and now we’re asking them to add a coding kit? We have to convince them that this is a value-add and that we will support them so that it doesn’t become just another unused tool.

On the business side, the biggest challenge is scaling a startup. I’ve worked in Silicon Valley, Fortune 500 companies, and nonprofits, but this is different. I feel a responsibility to ensure that our investors see a return on their belief in us. That’s a challenge—delivering 10x or 100x their investment. There are no guarantees, but I wake up every day doing my best to make that happen.

Traci: That’s a big responsibility. It’s inspiring to hear how passionate you are about making a real impact.

Christa: Absolutely. You’ve had such a fascinating journey. If you weren’t doing this right now, what would you be doing instead?

Jarvis: If I had it my way, and if I had grown taller, I would have been in the NBA! Growing up in Louisiana, I had a basketball court in my backyard, and that was my dream.

Realistically, though, I think I would be teaching. I’ve been tutoring since I was in undergrad—helping students in math and science. Even if I weren’t in a formal classroom, I’d still be involved in education in some way.

Traci: That makes perfect sense given your passion for mentorship. Thank you so much for your time today—it’s been amazing to hear your journey and how you’re paying it forward.

Christa: Thank you for sharing your story. I know it will inspire so many students.