Dr. Ebuka Arinze, PhD in Electrical Engineering | Senior Product Development Engineer at Intel Corporation

In this episode, we discuss the role of mentorship in Ebuka’s decision to pursue a PhD in Electrical Engineering and throughout his doctoral experience, how he approached the decision to leave academia to work in industry, and his advice for connecting with people to help assess career goals.

Hosted by Lois Dankwa

To connect with Ebuka and to learn more about his story, visit his page on the PHutures #100AlumniVoices Project website.

Transcript

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Lois Dankwa

Hi! I'm co-host! Lois Dankwa, and this is the 100 alumni voices podcast, stories that inspire, where we explore the personal and professional journeys of a diverse group of 100 doctoral alumni from Johns Hopkins University. Today we're joined by Ebuka Arinze, PhD in electrical engineering and current Senior Product Development Engineer at Intel Corporation. Hi Ebuka.

Ebuka Arinze

Hi Lois, I’m glad to be here with you today.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, thanks for joining us. I'm excited to dive in and learn more about you.

Ebuka Arinze

Absolutely, absolutely. Let's get, let's get into it.

Lois Dankwa

So, I first want to start by really just understanding why you wanted to pursue a PhD in electrical engineering and really just learn more about your graduate work at Hopkins.

Ebuka Arinze

Yeah, sure. Yeah, let me dive into that. I think the best way for me to answer that question would be even separating the electrical engineering part and just understanding why I even pursued a PhD to start with. And I think that goes back to on my college days, and you know, for background, I went to Fairfield University for undergrad. It's a small Catholic school in Connecticut, and I got to that point in, you know, my sophomore more junior year to be honest, where you know, like the typical undergrad, you know, you start thinking about what that next step is for you. And at that point that you know with an engineering background, I started electrical engineering. That's my my undergrad as well. So, with an engineering background, you usually usually have a few different options of what route you do want to take. And at that point I was debating between the industry, or you know more Academia. And I'll be very honest, it wasn't any, wasn't any revelation from my end. It wasn't any, it wasn't any of my doing to be honest. I think I was in that position where I was surrounded by some great professors that thought I was doing some great work in college, and thought I was great doing research, and they pretty much recommended that I continued doing research even on a graduate level. So, I think when they first told me that I was like wait really? I was like interesting. I've never really thought about it, you know. I think, as an engineer it’s pretty, it's pretty straightforward to start, you know, making pretty good money after college, right?

Lois Dankwa

Yeah.

Ebuka Arinze

But you know when my professors told me that, especially professors I had trusted at the time, it made me start thinking about it and made me start thinking about, you know, perhaps I do want to do it. And I started exploring what it meant, and by that, it meant talking to more people, talking to more professors, more people in graduate school, more people doing PhDs. And that's when I decide to what you know, just just just try it. Just try it. And I ended up, you know, applying to a few different schools, and, you know, getting into into some of them, and think it was that point I was like, you know, what why not? Let's do it, you know. Let's just dive into it, and that's kind of of why I did and how I ended up at Hopkins.

Lois Dankwa

That's pretty cool. It's it's funny how something is not your plan at all, but it ends up being your plan because someone suggests it. And you realize it's consistent with you in the first place, even if you didn't realize it.

Ebuka Arinze

Absolutely, I'm sorry. I think that was it was even evident from, you know, when I started at Hopkins. I think part of the second question or part of your first question I guess the second part was, you know what kind of research I was doing at Hopkins. And you know, and it it kind of lined up with my vision of one what I wanted and and and two what I wanted to get out of it. So, like I mentioned so my background was electrical engineering and at Hopkins as well my, my graduate work was in electrical engineering department as well. And you know I'll try and be as as high level as possible to to make it understandable what I did. But a lot of my work focused on developing nano materials that could be used for energy harvesting or you know, energy generation, energy capture. So, the the a mundane way to think about it would be to think of like an example being like solar cells or solar panels. I worked a lot on materials that were able to capture energy in that form. I mean, a lot of my research focused on working on cheap materials because a lot of the commercial stuff will obviously be very expensive. So, working on cheap materials, scalable materials, to be able to be, you know, more efficient in generating energy. I think that's a good high level of what my research was.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah. I'm glad that you understand that high level is a good place to to start, and really, just highlight your work, knowing that I my next question, would be something like materials? What does that mean?

Ebuka Arinze

Exactly, exactly.

Lois Dankwa

So, I think I think the direction I want to go in instead, is really thinking about how kind of pursuing a PhD wasn't really part of your initial plan, but I'm curious how pursuing a PhD, and then also, now being where you are, are you able to notice areas in what you're doing now that were consistent with how you'd always envisioned your career? And in your doctoral program, did you start to kind of exercise things that you realized you always wanted to exercise, and you hadn't realized it was the PhD path?

Ebuka Arinze

Yeah, you know, I think it's been, it's been, it's been quite the journey. I think a lot of you know, I try to tell people this right, which is, you know, a lot of what I do in my my work today, they do, they do have some foundations in my PhD Program, but less in the details of the actual research. And you will find that that's pretty common in the industry, right? A lot of a lot of what I took away were more more so the intangible things, cause research gets pretty specific, right? You know when when you focus on research, I mean, that's the whole goal of a PhD, right is to, you know, kind of explore the unexplored right, is to dive in where no one has dived in as much. So, as far as the details of my research the the minutiae I don't I don't I don't, if I'm very honest, you know I’ve probably forgotten some of it and I would need to pick it back up, but the foundation of what I do is rooted in a lot of the intangible things that in my PhD. And I'll be honest, I didn’t envision that, but it's been a great revelation, has been a great evolution, I would say, as far as my career, because, you know a lot of those intangible things come in, you know the the the people I work with, the way I interpret data, the way I approach data solving, the way I approach problem solving. And you know, I think those kinds of things, I think that that's what I really built throughout the PhD program. And that's what I feel like transferred the most to work, as far as you know me looking back and understanding how you know the PhD program guided me to exactly where I am and what I do today.

Lois Dankwa

That's honestly so helpful to hear you say, because it can be so easy when being in the program, getting really caught up on like, Oh, my gosh! How do I describe my interests knowing there's this specific topic, or the specific method that I'm doing? But there's so many things that we're doing as doctoral students and candidates where it's like those are the skills you'll be using. Things that you're doing regularly like I was telling you earlier about organizing my calendar. That stuff like that, or whatever organizational skills or techniques related to the methods, those are the things that will really carry into and those are the skills that we're really taking with us.

Ebuka Arinze

Absolutely. And you know I'll always add that, you know, like you know, a lot of times I talk to people that consider PhDs, or people that are in PhD programs, and you know about my experience, and I always say that I try not to downplay PhDs again because it is a lot of hard work, but I always say that you know, a lot of people put a PhD on this very, very high title. So, which again, you know, maybe rightfully, should be there. But you know, in my belief, anyone could aspire to it, right. Anyone could aspire to it. It’s not it;s not for select group of people. Anyone can aspire to it. Again, a lot of it will be in the hard work. But that being said, like a lot of what you take away from it will be in the process itself rather than the details of whatever it is that you find, or whatever it is that you research. A lot of the takeaway, a lot of what you will take away from the program will be the little things that you didn't even think you would you know throughout the program as far as you know, those intangible things, and that that is what transfers the most when you leave, you know.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, definitely. So, I wanna earlier you were talking about mentors and how a mentor had a really specific role in you even thinking about getting a PhD, and I think about for myself a similar experience happened. But I want to hear more about the role of mentors for you, and how how you met them? But also like, how were they really influential in how you experienced achieving and getting your PhD? But also, how have those relationships looked now?

Ebuka Arinze

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the role of mentors is is always very important. I think I think you know, we always think of ourselves as as independent beings, right, and you know, and we are. We are independent in a lot of regards, but you know when I think of my career and how I've gotten to where I am today, you know it has been by the help of a lot of mentors, you know whether it’s informal mentors, formal mentors, and and you know in in college for example, and that's why that's why I always lead off saying that or making sure I I expand that which is, you know, a lot of it wasn't my thinking. Again, if we go back right. You know this is me at 19 or 20, right. I really don't know much at that stage, right? So, I'm I'm really dependent on on people that I trust right and trust being the keyword here. You know, to be able to have mentors, to be able to trust someone with decision making and I've been lucky enough to have good mentors. And you know, throughout my engineering degrees and career, where we have very frank discussions on you know, what do you want to take out of this? You know, what do you want to do with this? And more importantly mentors that, you know look at you for you, and look at you and figure out what your strengths are, and what they think you would be good at. And so, for me in college that was, you know, and I had about 3 or 4 of my engineering professors that were, you know, mentors to me in that regard. And then moving on to my PhD program, you know, as you could attest, right? You know much of your PhD program, you know, a lot of the PhD program will be determined by whoever your advisor is. And so because of that, you know, you know which again, I didn't know this coming in, but you know, being able to pick the right professor right advisor is probably the most important decision you can make in your program in your PhD program. And you know I've I've seen it make people. I've seen it break people as well right as you know.  You know, being able to, you know, make that decision, or, you know, find who it is that you believe would be a person and I was, I was very, very lucky to be able to find my advisor in the electrical engineering program, Dr. Susanna Thon, and you know it was interesting, because at that time she wasn't very experienced. She was a relatively new professor in the in the school of Engineering right, but I had several conversations with her, and we we got to know each other a little bit, and that gave me the ability to be able to trust my program. You know, put my program into her hands and you know, for me to trust her, and in turn for her to trust me as well, because, you know, obviously with a lot of these PhD programs, you know, you you do a lot of work for the professor as well, right. 

Lois Dankwa

Right.

Ebuka Arinze

You know, and and so you know, that's why trust is always the most important thing, and and once we had that down, you know, that's the foundation of having mentors. And so, when you move through things, when you try to make you know, go through your decision making, you have no doubt. I had no doubt in talking to my advisor that I was getting the the best advice that she had for me as far as understanding where I've come from, what I've done so far at Hopkins, and where I want to go, right? So, I think mentors are the foundation of you know your careers in, for me, engineering, but in any field as well as having that trust to be able to have in a mentor.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, I love that. I love that you highlight the importance of being able to build trust with mentors. I think something that also sticks out to me often is how mentors can come in a lot of different, a lot of different forms. Sometimes they can look like you, sometimes they can have the same lived experience as you, or have a lot of experience or not a lot of experience in the particular field, but it's about finding something that you are able to connect with them on and building trust based off of that. And yeah, it's it's nice and important to kind of remember I think especially going through a doctoral program, knowing that mentors hold different roles. But also, you mentioned in undergrad you had, like 3 or 4, and also at Hopkins you had a couple of different mentors as well, and it's like right. One person can't be your end all be all. And it's important to really balance it out.

Ebuka Arinze

Absolutely.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, I I think about for myself how it was so important to really like there're some mentors where we aligned on personality match or like we processed information in the same way. So, even if at this point our fields aren't the same we’re still able to connect because we just get each other 

Ebuka Arinze

Absolutely.

Lois Dankwa

And built relationship that way.

Ebuka Arinze

Absolutely. And I think even even again in in in my program, right is you know part of part of our requirements for our program is being able to take all these different classes, even in different in different departments, as well, so you know that gave me the opportunity to even, you know, I'm in electrical Engineering, but I had a mentor that was, you know, in material science engineering program, right? So, you know, being able to, you know, not only limit yourself in your department or your field, like you said, but you know being exposed to other fields, other departments, you know, other offices. It really gave me a lot of options, as far as connecting with people. And you know, figuring out which kinds of people, what kinds of people you you wanted to to to to interact with as far as long term, and mentorship, and guidance, you know.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, definitely. So, I'm curious then when you were in your program at the end part where you were thinking about careers, how did you like, what was your process to figuring out that you wanted to end up where you were? Like was being at Intel what you knew you wanted to do? Or were there steps in between that got you to this moment?

Ebuka Arinze

Yeah. I think mine wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't quite an easy journey to to get to where I am in terms of like the decision making. I think a lot of it was I was very conflicted. I was very conflicted, and you know, conflicted in terms of staying in academia or moving on to the industry. And again, a lot of that conflict which, you know, in this case, I believe was good conflict was, you know, enjoying what I was doing so much that I was like, do I wanna stay in it? You know, but then, you know, taking a step back, and being like, okay, long term what is it that I truly want? And so, I I had a lot of different conversations with again all my different mentors, but especially my advisor, and trying to understand what it is I wanted to do after right, and again, a lot of that decision making was, you know, trying to understand you know, short term goals, long term goals, and and and quite frankly, you know, I think I got up, and I was like, alright, you know, I'm getting paid peanuts in grad school. I was like, alright let me go make some money, please, like I'll be honest, I'll be honest. That was, that was part of the decision making as well is, you know, the the potential income. And I was like, alright, yeah, I'm gonna go to the industry. But it was tough. It was, it was, it was a conflicted decision. But again, you weigh all these things, short term, long term, and you know the kinds of company you're working to the kind of role you'd want to walk into. And you know that kind of came all together with me and translated into me working at Intel.

Lois Dankwa

I think that you bring up such a great point that there's so many different factors that go into your thinking about like, should I go into Academia? Oh the plus is that I can do research, but then there's there's there are certain costs to that as well. But then, if you go in industry, there's pluses and minuses as well. But it's I, actually in a conversation last week with an emerging mentor for me I'd say, he said, that for your career it's it's gonna be a long career. So, every opportunity you do will maybe be like 50 to like 80 whatever percent of what you want to do and it doesn't really matter what you pick, because you have the ability to pivot throughout your career.

Ebuka Arinze

Exactly. Yeah.

Lois Dankwa

And it's it's hard to have that in your forefront of your mind when you're in the moment of picking because it feels like you've worked so hard to this moment. It's like the biggest decision, 

Ebuka Arinze

Absolutely. 

Lois Dankwa

But I I guess it's not, even though it feels like it is. 

Ebuka Arinze

Yeah, yeah, again, yeah. Cause again, at that point, right, is, we feel like it's a right or wrong answer, right?

Lois Dankwa

Yeah.

Ebuka Arinze

We feel like you know it, this is the finality, this is it. This is, you know, the fulcrum and in a lot of in a lot of instances, it really isn't. Again, but a lot of that pivot and like you said a lot of that will take courage and a lot of that will take a lot of, you know, getting yourself putting yourself in in that position. But again, I think I think these are good. It's it's good to have these kinds of conflicts, right? Because you never you never want to feel like you know, you're doing things just because or you're doing things because that's the next thing to do, right? It's always there's always something to be said about the intentionality of your decisions, and whatever next step it is that you're doing. So, I think it's always a good thing.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah. That's a good point. So, I have a couple—I have 2 more questions for you if that’s ok.

Ebuka Arinze

Okay, of course.

Lois Dankwa

And so, I am curious then it's, you just said that it's always important to not feel like everything is the final, the final answer and you're locked in forever. And I'm curious what advice, then, you have for someone who's interested in your field. But then also, just for current and post-PhDs that are in a transition moment right now.

Ebuka Arinze

I think the main advice, I would say, which is something that I've I've been doing a lot, and if you had to string along a theme of what I've said about you, know whether it's college for me or grad school at Hopkins for me or you know, even work today because I have pivoted in the in the in some sense at work. My only advice would be to as much as possible have conversations with people that are in whatever field that you're considering, or people that are doing whatever it is that you're thinking about doing. And the reason, I say that is, it's very easy to it's very easy to sit back and make our own decisions. It's very easy to sit back and say, okay, I’ve weighed the pros, I’ve weighed the cons, and this is what I think. But you know we often forget how myopic that could be in terms of what we're able to see and what we're able to not see. And so, with that, the main thing, I would say is being able to hear a lot of different people's opinions, right? Being able to weigh in what other people's experiences have been and hearing how those experiences have shaped them into who they are, and you know how they've enjoyed it, right. And for me, that throughout my whole journey has played a big role in understanding what’s next for me, or you know my next choice or my next decision or my next move, you know, being able to weigh all those people's decisions outside of what I think, outside of you know what I've weighed all my pros and all my cons. That's always been very crucial in me deciding what it is I want to.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, I honestly, I love that. That's that's something that's been so helpful for me. Just talking to people that have more experience than me. And sometimes it's the people that don't seem like they have more experience than you that you're also learning from.

Ebuka Arinze

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Any people could surprise you. You know, you hear something like, wow, I did not expect that. And you know then, that ties into into your outlook or your outtake on what it is that you want to do is. I love it. And I like, I said, I still do it today. You know, it's it's so great to just hear other people's experiences.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah. So, one more question for you. I'd love to hear what is inspiring you right now.

Ebuka Arinze

What is inspiring me? I think the main thing that inspires me in a phrase honestly would be service, service of others. I think you know a lot of what I do again on on a very high level, you know, the main thing I do is develop microprocessors for devices, right. So, whether it's, you know, phones, laptops, any kind of electronic device you could think of, a lot of my work is developing the chips and microprocessors that run all these machines. So, what main thing that inspires me today really is service, service of people and being able to see people enjoy things, people able to see people relish things again, you know that that for me is the biggest thing and I think that's what keeps me going is you know being able to see people you know get excited about their new phone, or you know their new car, or you know their new, you know, their new device, any kind of device that gets people excited because at the end of the day, you know, my, I feel like my purpose in life is is service to others, service to god, and and and for me that's that's what plays a major role into into what I do every day.

Lois Dankwa

I'm a big fan of that as someone that that that is also inspired by service to others, and all of that.

Ebuka Arinze

Yeah, yeah.

Lois Dankwa

Great answer. I love that. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for taking time to chat with us and sharing a little bit about your story today.

Ebuka Arinze

Absolutely and thank thank you for putting this together. Thank you for coordinating it. I appreciate it. It’s been a blast to hear about your story and to use this as a form of reflection on my journey so far, you know.