Kathy Hoogeboom-Pot joined Intel’s Portland Technology Development group in Lithography in 2015 as a process development engineer with a focus on the state-of-the-art scanners and patterning processes used for Intel’s development and production of the newest generations of silicon products. Her role has included responsibility for scanners from their initial installation and qualification to their active use in manufacturing of production material, as well as experimental design, execution and analysis in testing out new manufacturing processes.
During her Ph.D. research in the Kapteyn-Murnane group at JILA and the University of Colorado in Boulder, she built a reputation as the group’s unofficial communicator. She gave over 40 research presentations between 2011 and 2015 and won several awards for technical presentations, including one from the National Science Foundation for the short video below, describing one part of her graduate research.
Kathy earned her Ph.D. in Physics using ultrafast coherent EUV light generated by amplified Ti:sapphire lasers on a tabletop to explore how our assumptions about heat flow and acoustic dynamics in materials break down in nanoscale systems. She designed, built and maintained complex optical equipment and lab-built ultrafast lasers, and enjoyed the challenge of carefully interpreting the real physical meaning of ultrafast optical measurements of nanoscale systems. The primary results included the development of a unique and powerful nanometrology technique for probing the mechanical properties of ultrathin films and nanostructured systems at sub-10nm length scales, as well as the discovery of a new and surprising regime of nanoscale thermal transport wherein nanoscale heat sources dissipate heat most efficiently when closely-spaced.
Kathy received her B.S. in Physics from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 2008. There she learned that she enjoyed the hands-on nature of experimental physics more than the computer-focused analysis of observational studies as she conducted research ranging from large-database data-mining to discover new asteroid dynamics, to ultracold atom-trapping experiments with krypton.
While at Calvin, she also had the pleasure of working in Calvin’s observatory, running several local and remote telescopes, leading tours for students and visitors from the general public, and helping astronomy students find some of the most interesting objects in the night sky. And she played an important role with the college newspaper there, starting up and editing a Science & Technology section before serving as Editor-in-Chief for the paper.
Now Kathy seeks to build her community through volunteering for environmental efforts and community events, and enjoys playing the trombone for the Hillsboro Symphony Orchestra. And she refreshes her soul by creating and building new things from old materials, singing and making music, and spending time exploring wild spaces.
See also a list of Kathy’s scientific achievements.