Electrical & Computer Engineering graduate student, Xinchao Lu, has been awarded the Outstanding Teaching Assistant at the 1st OSU graduate teaching assistant award.

Dr. Weili Zhang (left) and Xinchao Lu (right)

Xinchao Lu has been Teaching Assistant of Dr. Weili Zhang’s courses of ECEN5843 Microelectronic Fabrication and ECEN5060.366 Advanced Microfabrication Labs since 2007 spring, which are designed to provide advanced training for graduate students on the fabrication principles and cleanroom processing of VLSI semiconductor chips.

As a teaching assistant, her responsibilities include preparing and leading the fabrication labs and substituting lectures when the instructor is away from campus. In order to make sure every class would run smoothly, she comes to the lab areas well ahead of class time to prepare the materials and check the instruments to be used in class, and stays to clean the laboratory after class until everything is well done. During the class, she stayed focused to provide effective and timely assistance in response to both the instructor and the students. She operates the advanced instruments skillfully and leads the students to learn the advanced fabrication processes independently. Because of her skill and understanding, she was able to fix the laboratory instruments when problems arose. She is an outstanding graduate student in both research and teaching. Lu said: “I am excited to have this award, and what I want to say is, without the beneficial instruction and support from my advisor, Dr. Zhang, also with the help from my students and friends, I would not get it.”