2025 CNF Annual Meeting

 Click here to register for the CNF Annual Meeting

2025 CNF Annual Meeting

Join us on Tuesday, November 18th, 2025, at Cornell University’s Ithaca Campus in the Statler Hotel for a full day of innovation, collaboration, and cutting-edge research at the CNF Annual Meeting.

This year’s event will feature keynotes from thought leaders at the intersection of decision science and microelectronics:


Keynote Speaker

Headshot of Cheryl Einhorn

 

 

 

Cheryl Strauss Einhorn

Founder and CEO, Decisive

 
Cheryl is the founder of Decisive, a decision sciences company that trains people and teams in complex problem solving and decision-making skills using the AREA Method. AREA is an evidence-based decision-making system that uniquely controls for and counters cognitive bias to expand knowledge while improving judgment. Cheryl developed AREA during her two decades as an aware-winning investigative journalist writing for publication ranging from The New York Times to Foreign Policy Magazine, Barron's and Harvard Business Review. Cheryl is a long time educator, having taught at Columbia Business School for over a decade and currently teaching at Cornell University's SC Johnson School of Business and Cornell Tech. She is the author of three books: Problem Solved, A Powerful System for Making Complex Decisions with Confidence and Conviction, about personal and professional decision-making, and Investing In Financial Research, A Decision-Making System for Better Results about financial and investment decisions. Her most recent book is about Problem Solver Profiles and the psychology of decision-making, Problem Solver, Maximizing Your Strengths To Make Better Decisions, and her new book on AI and decision-making will be published in 2026. Cheryl loves to be in the great outdoors, spend time with her three kids, and bake all kinds of good cookies. Learn more by watching her Ted Talk and visiting areamethod.com
  

Plenary Speaker

Headshot of Dirk Pfeiffer

 

 

Dr. Dirk Pfeiffer

Director, Microelectronics Research Laboratory (MRL)
IBM Research – T.J. Watson Research Center

 
Dr. Dirk Pfeiffer is the director of the Microelectronics Research Laboratory (MRL) at the IBM TJ Watson Research Center. The MRL is a semiconductor R&D facility with key capabilities including a 200mm wafer scale fabrication line, die and wafer level packaging & assembly, surface mount technology, characterization and other for advanced prototyping and process development of new materials and devices. The key mission of the MRL is to accelerate technologies from early stages of innovation to wafer scale development and manufacturing ("lab to Fab" prototyping). Its project portfolio include quantum, semiconductor device and materials development, embedded analog devices for memory and AI application, loT and biomedical devices for health care applications, 2.5 and 3D packaging development and cooling and others. Dr. Dirk Pfeiffer has 25 years of experience and material process development as well as building and operating semiconductor fabrication facilities. He is author and coauthor of 80 plus patents, publications, as well as several outstanding technology achievement awards and has a PhD in Chemistry.

 Don’t miss your chance to connect with leaders, researchers, and peers shaping the future of nanoscience.

Click here to register for the CNF Annual Meeting


📍 Location: Statler Hotel, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
📅 Date: Tuesday, November 18, 2025

AGENDA

8:00am-8:30am  Registration & Continental Breakfast
 
8:30am-8:50am  Welcoming Remarks & CNF Updates
Gary Koretzky, Interim Vice Provost for Research
Ron Olson, CNF Director of Operations
 
  
8:50am-9:50am  KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Cheryl Strauss Einhorn
Founder and CEO 
Decisive                                                                
"Decision-Making Amid Uncertainty"
  
9:50am-10:10am  Break & Poster Preview 
  
Session Chair: Chris Alpha
  
10:10am-10:25am  Judy Cha
Lester B. Knight Director
"PFAS and Low Warming Global Potential"
 
10:25am-10:40am  Aaron Windsor, Senior Engineer
Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility
"Viability of HFO-1234ze(E) as a Low Global Warming 
Potential Etch Gas"
Research Group: CNF Staff
 
10:40am-10:55am  Amirhossein Favakeh, Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Food Science and Technology, Cornell University
"Advancing Assisted Reproduction via Vibration-Induced Flow 
and Impedance-Based Cell Screening"
Research Group: Abbaspourrad Lab
 
10:55am-11:15am  Vendor Break 
 
Session Chair: Phil Infante
  
11:15am-11:30am  Valla Fatemi, Assistant Professor, Aref and Manon 
Lahham Faculty Fellow School of Applied and Engineering 
Physics, Cornell University
"Superconducting Qubit Fabrication at the CNF"
Research Group: Quantum Circuits and Materials Lab
 
11:30am-11:45am  Supun Liyanaarachchi, Graduate Student
Institute of Optics, University of Rochester
"Mechanically Engineered Passive Alignment Structures for
Integrated Photonic Chip Coupling"
Research Group: Cardenas Lab
 
 
11:45am-12:00pm  Amelia Schaeffer, Ph.D. Student
Department of Applied and Engineering 
Physics, Cornell University
"Decoding Emergent Thermal Phenomena in hBN Under
Electrical Stress"
Research Group: ZT Group
  
12:00pm-1:30pm  Lunch, Poster Session, & Vendor Break 
  
1:30am-2:00pm  PLENARY SPEAKER

Dirk Pfeiffer
Director, Microelectronics Research Laboratory (MRL) 
IBM Research - T.J. Watson Research Center
"Wafer Scale Semiconductor Lab to Fab Process Development
and Prototyping"
  
2:00pm-2:15pm  Nellie Whetten Award 
  
Session Chair: Garry Bordonaro
  
2:15pm-2:30pm  Shankar C. Miller-Murthy, Device Fabrication Engineer
Soctera Inc.
"Record 11.7 W/mm Continuous Wave Output Power in X-band
AIN-buffer HEMTs"
Research Group: Soctera
 
  
2:30pm-2:45pm  Yeryun Cheon, Ph.D. Student
Department of Physics, Cornell University
"Unconventional Resistivity Scaling in Weyl Semimetal 
NbAs Nanowire"
Research Group: Cha Group
 
  
2:45pm-3:00pm  Yanxin Ji, Postdoctoral Researcher
Lab of Atomic and Solid State Physics (LASSP), Cornell University
"From Microscopic Actuators to Sub-Millimeter 
Robots and Wings"
Research Group: Itai Cohen Group
 
  
3:00pm-3:15pm  Jinsong Zhang, Postdoctoral Associate
Lab of Atomic and Solid State Physics 
(LASSP), Cornell University
"Electronically Programmable Microvalves for Microfluidic
Manipulation"
Research Group: Itai Cohen Group
 
  
3:15pm-3:30pm  Lei Li, Manager, Postdoctoral Associate
High Frequency Test Lab, Cornell University
"Heterogeneous Integration of Chiplets of 
Different Technologies for RF Frontends"
 
  
3:30pm-3:45pm  Break 
  
Session Chair: Mike Skvarla
  
3:45pm-4:00pm  Becky Lane, Ph.D.
Director, Creative Technology Lab, Center for 
Teaching Innovation, Cornell University
"Beyond the Classroom: Creative Technologies for Teaching and 
Workforce Training"
Research Group: Creative Technology Lab
 
  
4:00pm-4:40pm  CNF STAFF PANEL: TOOL DISCUSSION

Chris Alpha, Process Integration, Cornell NanoScale Facility

Shilling Du, Postdoctoral Associate, Cornell NanoScale Facility
"Josephson Junctions and Angstrom-Q"

Jeremy Clark, Plasma Process Engineer, 
Cornell NanoScale Facility
"New Nordtech Plasma Tools"

Tom Pennell, Etching, Cornell NanoScale Facility
 
  
4:40pm-4:55pm  Poster Awards - Presented by: Ron Olson and Judy Cha 
  
5:30pm-6:30pm  Cleanroom Tours 
  
Agenda subject to change

 

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