All the possibilities of the cleanroom

Midway through his undergraduate studies, Jorg Scholvin ’00, MEng ’01, PhD ’06 first entered a cleanroom.He had signed up for a fabrication class as a computer science major in the late 1990s to see firsthand how a computer is put together.He realized, “It’s amazing to see how it’s built and to build it myself.”Scholvin had shifted his focus to electrical engineering by the semester’s end, and he went on to spend several years at MIT honing his skills in fabrication in the Microsystems Technologies Laboratories.

As an assistant director at MIT.nano, the Institute’s center for nanoscale science and engineering, he now leads others through all of the cleanroom’s possibilities.Initially from Germany, Scholvin has made MIT his headquarters for over 25 years, less a short break in finance. “He describes his undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral, and staff experiences on campus, noting that even though you are in the same place, you still get to experience very different versions of it.

He has contributed to the establishment of a brand-new resource for campus research since joining MIT.nano in 2018, the year it opened:a single location that houses everything necessary for nanoscale research and development.The tools on MIT.nano are available to both internal and external users.However, regardless of where they come from, every one of the people who bring their work through its entryways approach master support from Scholvin and his partners.