MSE Industry Roundtable: Ning Duanmu, Director of Engineering, Amastan Technologies
Dr. Ning Duanmu (’05 MFG), Director of Engineering, Amastan Technologies, a venture capital backed technology company focused on the production of materials for applications involving additive manufacturing, LED lighting, high performance coating, and batteries, spoke to twenty BU graduate students on April 19, 2017. Duanmu’s talk was titled “Engineering a Career in Advanced Materials: My Experience in Solar, Building the Largest Sapphire Factory, and Nanomaterials.” In his talk Duanmu reflected on the nature of engineering challenges in advanced materials processing and product development in general, how to overcome these challenges and the importance of understanding business approaches.
The students asked questions about his professional life after graduation. The discussion ranged from how to build an effective team in graduate school and in professional settings as well as the role of experience, skills, luck, and serendipity.
“As an MSE student, I’ve spent my time at BU studying clean energy generation and in particular, solar technologies. I found his insights into the solar industry particularly relevant as I’d like to break into the industry.”said Ricci La Centra.
In 2005, Dr. Duanmu earned his PhD from the BU College of Engineering Department of Manufacturing Engineering (now ME). After graduation, he joined GT Advanced Technologies, a primary equipment supplier for the global photovoltaic solar industry, where he served as Systems Engineer, Systems Engineering Manager, and Director of Technology from 2005 to 2015. He also served as a member of the Silicon Solar Consortium (SiSoC) industrial advisory board, an NSF funded and internationally attended organization supporting forward looking advancement of photovoltaic solar technologies.
This MSE Industry Roundtable event was co-sponsored by CISE (Center for Information and Systems Engineering), the Division of Systems Engineering, and the Department of Mechanical Engineering.