Biography (Long and Personal): Jack W. Judy

Prof. Judy was born in Boulder Colorado in 1967. At the age of two his family relocated to Minnesota, where his father, Prof. Jack H. Judy, joined the faculty of the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Minnesota. Growing up in a houshold with an engineering professor for a father and a gifted older brother (Michael, who also received a doctorate n Electrical Engineering) provided many opportunities for intellectual challange and development. Thankfully his mother (Bette) provided an artistic and cultural balance during his upbringing.

Prof. Judy attended the Institute of Technology at the University of Minnesota for his undergraduate education. Being the “rebellious second child”, he enrolled in Mechanical Engineering instead of Electrical Engineering. However, after paternal persuasion and his first thermodynamics class, he switched into Electrical Engineering for the rest of his formal academic education. Prof. Judy was first exposed to the field of micro-eletro-mechanical systems when he attended a seminar given by Dennis L. Polla, who was a recenly hired assistant professor at the time. As part of the University of Minnesota Institute of Technology Undergraduate Honor Program, Prof. Judy performed research with Prof. Polla that led to his first publications in this area. As an undergradate, Prof. Judy also participated in the corporate-internship program available at his school by spending one quarter and two summers working for a firm known as Control Data, Inc.. This experience provided him with valuable first-hand insight into life as an engineer in a large company. Due to the internship program, Prof. Judy graduated in December (1989), out of phase with the normal academic calendar. He immediately enrolled in the Electrical Engineering graduate program at the University of Minnesota and worked with Prof. Polla on a number of exciting research projects.

In August of 1990, Prof. Judy transferred to the graduate program in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley – the school his father attended after high school and the program in which his brother was enrolled – and joined the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center working for Prof. Richard S. Muller. Dr. Hans H. Zappe, a Fellow at IBM Alamden Research Center at the time, approached Prof. Muller and asked him why there weren’t any magnetic MEMS in the field of MEMS – up to that point nearly all MEMS were electrostatic or thermal in nature and made out of silicon-based materials. Prof. Judy then embakred on a journey exploring the use of magnetic materials in MEMS, with an emphasis on microactuators. After his first year in graduate school, Prof. Judy spent the summer at IBM Almaden Research Laboratories to learn how magnetic recording heads are fabricated and to explore the integration of that fabrication process with the silicon-based micromachining processes used to produce most other MEMS. His master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation comprehensively document his research in this specific area.

After graduating in 1996, Prof. Judy considered many excellent employment opportunities (including an academic position), but choose instead to join a small start-up firm known as Silicon Light Machines, Inc.. This brief (less than one year) but excellent experience taught him much about life as an engineer in Silicon Valley, working in a small company, his academic preparation, and himself. In 1997, he joined the faculty in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of California, Los Angeles, where is presently involved in a number of MEMS and neuroengineering research projects and related educational activities.