Conor R. Thomas

Concurrent with my department management role, I am the project manager for hardware development for the Z Processor Nest. Partnering with technical leaders I manage schedule, resources, and status reporting for a large, global team responsible for logic design, verification, and physical design of IBM Z's Nest subsystems. This includes the cache, coherency, memory controllers, and on-chip AI and compression accelerators.

Department manager for 15-20 VLSI Physical Design engineers developing the next-generation of IBM Z Processors. Responsible for coaching, career development, hiring, and performance evaluation for my department. Additionally, Project Manager for Z Processor Physical Design, covering a matrixed team of 60 engineers across four countries to deliver next-generation mainframe processors from concept to tape-out.

Technical lead for surface analysis, supervising and mentoring a small team of technicians and engineers, developing new hire hire employees to handle routine analysis. Managed workflow through the surface analysis labs by prioritizing analytical resources across multiple projects. Managed lab capital improvements worth over $3.5M in new and upgraded analytical instrumentation, modernizing the surface analysis laboratory to align with future technical needs. Owned these projects from end-to-end including justification, vendor selection, installation, and technical acceptance testing. Established new collaborations throughout IBM Research, Development, and Supply Chain Developed industry-first 3D chemical imaging methods combining TOF-SIMS & AFM, resulting in invited talks at national and international conferences

Surface scientist for TOF-SIMS, AES, and AFM analysis Provided materials analysis and subject matter expertise to a range of projects including semiconductor processing and packaging development, superconducting qubit processing, and enterprise hardware failure analysis

Managed an interdisciplinary thesis project involving collaborators across chemistry, physics, and engineering - Studied the surface oxidation of Bi2Te2Se topological insulators, establishing the important role that step edges play on surface reactivity for this class of materials. - Demonstrated the critical role that step edges play in surface reactivity of Bi2Te2Se topological insulators through laboratory and synchrotron XPS studies Controllably tuned the surface electronic states of Bi2Te2Se using surface chemical modification

Planned and taught precepts, graded homework and exams Head TA for Spring '12 semester

Assisted with the construction of a laser ablation/molecular jet spectrometer for investigating small metal-containing molecules.