<b>Life After Grad School Seminar</b><br><i>Is the Auto Industry a Good Deal for a Ph.D. Physicist?</i>

Speaker: Dr. Bita Ghaffari (Ford Research and Advanced Engineering, Dearborn MI)

Dr. Ghaffari is a 1997 AMO Ph.D. graduate of our Physics Department and won the 1998 APS Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Beam Physics. After a two year post-doc pursuing Bose Einstein condensation at Rice University she returned to Michigan to work at Ford Scientific, the Research and Advanced Engineering Labs of Ford Motor Company in Dearborn. An employee of the company for ten years, she has worked on two major research goals: creating non-destructive tests to find defects in parts as they roll off the assembly line, and strengthening alloys that are used to make engines and other vehicle components. She will, however, talk more about her overarching motivation and career satisfaction, and how a physicist might fit in a large automotive company. “I became interested in the impact research can have,” Bita says, and how industry in general, and the auto sector specifically, could provide the opportunity to affect a large number of people.

Dr. Ghaffari’s thoughts on her career at Ford were recently highlighted in the APS news column, “Profiles in Versatility” (January, 2010).

Light refreshments provided at 3:50 P.M.