edfas.org 45 ELECTRONIC DEVICE FAILURE ANALYSIS | VOLUME 28 NO. 4 GUEST COLUMN EDFAS MENTORSHIP PROGRAM 2026 COHORT: GOING STRONG WITHIN OUR COMMUNITY The EDFAS Mentorship Program, established in 2025, matches distinguished semiconductor industry professionals with students and early-career professionals, leveraging the mentor’s experience, knowledge, and professional network to assist and guide students and young professionals as they transition from academia through the early stages of their professional career. The mentorship program also helps to build a foundation for growth and continuity in EDFAS through cultivation of interests in professional organizations such as ASM and EDFAS, as well as conferences such as ISTFA. The 2026 cohort began in January of this year and is composed of six mentors and six mentees. Through a solicitation in the EDFAS Student & Young Professionals (SYP) Committee, prospective mentees indicated their interest in the program. The mentee group included two college students and four early-career professionals. The mentor group consisted of industry professionals who graciously volunteered their time. Prior to the cohort launch, mentors submitted a professional biography to the program while mentees answered a brief questionnaire outlining their specific goals and aspirations. Each mentee was then matched up with a mentor that they would partner with for the seven-month cohort and each mentor-mentee relationship was customized based on the mentee’s goals and aspirations. After the pairing process and introductions, the mentors and mentees would meet virtually on a regular schedule. The first exercise for each mentee was to write their own professional biography, under the guidance of their mentor; resulting in a foundational document that each mentee could then build upon throughout their professional journey. The cohort continued with the mentors sharing their experiences, wisdom, guidance, and professional networks with their respective mentees. Following completion of the cohort, most of the mentor-mentee relationships remain active. This year’s team of mentors includes: Fuhe Li of Covalent, Chris Richardson of Allied High Tech, Felix Beaudoin, FASM, of GlobalFoundries, Renee Parente of AMD, Kris Dickson of AMD, and Jim Colvin of FA Instruments. The mentees include the following students and early-career professionals, and it is a pleasure to introduce them. Nathan Tomas is a materials science and engineering student at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities pursuing an accelerated master’s degree in data science for chemical engineering and materials science. He is dedicated to data science driven approaches to failure analysis and manufacturing workflows for high-reliability products. He has three years of experience researching patented manufacturing processes for printable, flexible electronics leading to a second-author publication. At NC State, he studied the impact of manufacturing conditions on a unique quantum phenomenon in thin films. Recently, he worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory developing an image processing pipeline to detect sample drift in scanning transmission electron microscope recordings. Here he found that his passion for advanced manufacturing intersects with his passion for characterization and data driven solutions. Tomas serves on the EDFAS SYP Committee after sitting as a Student Board Member for ASM International and currently serves as vice president for the Material Advantage Chapter at his university. Tomas is eager to explore the medical industry as he begins work at Medtronic as an R&D engineer. He hopes to translate his semiconductor manufacturing and defect detection experience onto the medical scene to develop data-driven solutions for life-critical products. Amrutha Sampath is a senior electrical failure analysis engineer at NXP Semiconductors in Austin, Texas, where she serves as team lead for the Secure Connected Edge “...each mentor-mentee relationship was customized based on the mentee’s goals and aspirations.” Tomas
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