Get from Theory to Practice with Professor Jaeger

12_11_15 Post Nick Jaeger

Using compassion and a developmental approach, three decades of experience in photonics and a passion for research, Professor Nick Jaeger helps each of his graduate students chart their own path to becoming an engineer. His approach to fostering writing skills that ultimately lead to professional opportunities is just one example of Prof. Jaeger’s approach. In the early stages of their program Prof. Jaeger is a patient sounding board for ideas an meticulous editor, often provided sentence-by-sentence comments, to develop outstanding scholarly writing skills. As the students’ mature Professor Jaeger provides financial support to help them attend conferences and encourages them to continue authoring papers and supporting their colleagues work through editing and review.

“Dr. Jaeger and I spent almost a week editing a paragraph describing the main principle of our research. This was included in a paper that was accepted by a leading conference in our field and I was invited to present our results in-person at the conference. Under Dr. Jaeger’s supervision, I have co-authored 26 journal and conference papers since 2009.” –Han Yun, PhD Candidate

Prof. Jaeger has substantially expanded his ability to support students through the NSERC CREATE SiEPIC Program designed in collaboration with Professor Chrostowski and Dr. Deptuck of CMC Microsystems. In this program, students from across Canada come to UBC to learn how to design and test silicon photonic devices fabricated at a world class CMOS foundry in Belgium. Once the students have designed their devices and had them fabricated the devices are tested by Prof. Jaeger’s in the Advanced Materials Process Engineering Laboratory here at UBC. Dr. Wei Shi, one of Prof. Jaeger and Chrostowski’s former students has gone on to develop a similar program at Laval University where he is now a faculty member.

“UBC’s silicon photonics research program reshaped my research interest. Dr. Jaeger’s rich experience and success in both academia and industry inspired me to pursue research at the cutting edge of this field that is important for industry.” – Dr. Wei Shi – Assistant Professor, Laval University

Professor Jaeger has mentored 11 PhD, 22 MSc, and 3 MEng students. His former students were invited to write to ECE in support of his nomination for the UBC Killam Award for Excellence in Mentoring. The response was overwhelming. The Department is very pleased that Prof. Jaeger’s 27 year commitment to the education of our students has been recognized with this award.

The Killam Awards for Excellence in Mentoring recognize outstanding mentorship of graduate students over many years. The award recognizes members of UBC’s faculty who model excellence in scholarship and integrity for their graduate students and foster creativity and critical thinking in their students. To receive the award faculty members must tailor their approach to mentorship to support each student individually and help them find fulfilling post-graduate occupations.

Above, Prof. Jaeger is photographed joining his students at the 2015 winter graduation celebration. Left to Right: Mingle Ma, Han Yun, Robi Boeck, Nick Jaeger, Oscar Wang, and Jack Zhang.