SPring 2025: WELCOME NEW FACULTY AND RESEARCH SCIENTISTS

Dr. Eden Zielinski

Eden Zielinski received her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Materials Science and Engineering all from Stanford University where she graduated with her final degree in 1995. She joined the semiconductor industry upon graduation, first working for Texas Instruments as an integration engineer on BEOL interconnects. In her 26-year career in the industry she has worked for Texas Instruments, Micron Technology, Advanced Micro Devices, and GlobalFoundries on BEOL processing and most recently was working on Bulk Acoustic Wave (BAW) filters for Qorvo. She has worked on improving Aluminum interconnect reliability, initial establishment of copper interconnects, integration of copper interconnects with low-k dielectrics, double patterning integration approaches, electrical optimization of BAW filter performance, and BAW filter integration challenges. Eden joined the North Texas Semiconductor Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas in 2023 and now serves as the Assistant Director where she aims to increase the number of high school students engaging in careers in technology.

Rajni (Raj) Aggarwal attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for both her undergraduate and graduate studies, receiving her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 1996. She began her career at Texas Instruments as a summer student in the late 1980’s and eventually joined full time after her graduate work was complete. Raj’s early career was focused on III-V quantum effect materials and devices. She transitioned into TI’s advanced CMOS development organization and participated in the advancement of CMOS technology nodes for over 25 years. Her work focused on the development of digital and analog CMOS, BiCMOS, and Bipolar technologies for high volume production across eight different TI production fabs around the world. In particular, she specialized in rapid technology deployment and understanding process/circuit interactions in technology nodes with near term commercial impact. Raj joined UTD in 2023 to lead Custom Semiconductor Process Engineering and Characterization (C-SPEC) within the North Texas Semiconductor Institute. The C-SPEC team has re-established a GaN high-electron mobility transistor flow within the NSERL cleanroom and is working closely with industrial and academic partners on this technology.

Dr. Rajni Aggarwal