Profile: Dragica Vasileska

As a child, Dragica Vasileska tried to build her own electrical circuits from scratch. Today she sits across from me, focused and deliberate, the paradigm of a true nanoscientist. Mentored over the years by some excellent teachers – and driven by a burning curiosity and intelligence - Vasileska grew her knowledge and moved from childhood toys to field-effect semiconductors and quantum mechanics. Vasileska’s credentials are prolific. She holds the title of all time best undergraduate student at the School of Electrical Engineering in Skopje, Macedonia, won the NSF CAREER award in 1998 as an assistant professor at ASU, and is listed in Strathmore's Who is Who. She is a Senior Member of IEEE and, in addition to her affiliation with ASU, is a professor at the University of Sts. Cyril and Methodi in Skopje and the Walden National Technological University.

A native of the Republic of Macedonia, Dragica came to the United States in 1990 to pursue her PhD at Arizona State University. While at ASU, she explored a highly multidisciplinary approach. Working with advisor David K. Ferry, she moved beyond the strict electrical engineering training of her undergrad and master’s experience and focused on a longtime interest in physical based device modeling. This new direction, coupled with an interest in physics, required her to take multiple graduate courses from the physics department to complete her PhD. The synthesis of disciplines merged physics and electrical engineering, opening a path toward physical based semiconductor modeling.

Dragica has been on permanent staff at ASU for the last six years, and was recently promoted to full professor. She currently teaches numerous courses, including circuits, intro to semiconductor devices, power electronics and linear electronics, and has taught approximately fourteen other courses at ASU in the areas of solid state theory, quantum mechanics, semiconductor device physics, semiconductor device modeling, and computational electronics. During our discussion, Professor Vasileska spoke at length about teaching, the use of simulation, and the relationship between the two.

Teaching

When we discuss teaching, Vasileska clasps her hands together, signaling a move from the language of nanotechnology to the language of education. “The reason why I chose to join the academic world is because I enjoy both research and teaching. When you teach a class, you not only explain the material, but you learn the material better for yourself. David Ferry told me once that, ‘If you want to learn about a particular topic, offer a class.’ I have done that multiple times, and have grown from it.”

“Two years ago I offered a quantum computing class. I learned a lot about the topic because I had to explain these concepts that were new to me as well. Even if you teach more basic level classes, you tend to look at things from a very different perspective.”

Vasileska’s motivations for teaching far transcend her personal thirst for knowledge. She is a conscientious educator, focusing on student’s needs.

“I work with my students,” she continues, “They can call me anytime and ask questions whether I am at home or at work. They can approach me anytime, or contact me through email. I always respond. Now, I think that teamwork is very important. Students have to help each other and I motivate them to help each other in their projects, which helps them learn extra material and broaden their knowledge.”

Vasileska views teamwork as a way to build relationships and, ultimately, the ability to see problems from many perspectives. This teamwork ultimately leads to an ability to think independently.

“They are prepared for the real world where they have to be independent problem solvers. Working in a team helps them have a broader knowledge base so they can address many more issues. And in today’s industry, both teamwork and independent thinking are highly encouraged.”

Connection to Purdue

Her collaboration with Purdue began when she started working with Mark Lundstrom in 2000. ASU was part of the Descartes Distributed Center for Advanced Electrical Simulations, which was a consortium of ASU, Purdue, Stanford, and the Univeristy of Illinois. As part of this project, Lundstrom and Vasileska decided they would install Schred. When first introduced, it could model simple MOS capacitors, and was very successful.

After this successful experience, they consistently added to the site. A tool was developed to simulate dual gate capacitors, and simulations for arbitrary crystallographic orientations are currently under development.

Open Source Research

Ultimately, Vasileska became part of the nanoHUB contributing team because she feels individuals should share the tools they develop, making them available to the public. She views an open environment of contribution and usage as key to the discipline, and urges those in the field to join in to the collaborative effort. “I think there should be more community involvement. Often, scientists don’t want to use tools we have not developed. If we could transcend this issue, sites like nanohub could have three or four times as many users and tools.”

Nanohub and Education

Vasileska views simulation and visualization as key to the learning process.

“My opinion is that people have visual memory - that they visually recall things. If they see something in a picture on a graph, they will recall it for a longer period of time, rather than if you just explain it to them. This is why I find nanohub tools convenient and useful when I am teaching classes at ASU. I use them whenever an opportunity arises to describe a topic and there happens to be a tool that suits it.”

When asked about the connection between virtualization, simulation, and pedagogy, Vasileska’s opinions are strong.

“There are many was to apply the nanohub to teaching. It can be used initially to demonstrate certain concepts during a lecture. Then, you can assign students homework assignments so they can use the nanohub by themselves – they can log in and work out homework assignments and then provide a solution.” While some express concern about introducing graduates and undergraduates to such a monumental collection of advanced software tools, Vasileska feels that most modern students are actually up to the task.

“I haven’t experienced any problems with students being confused how to launch the tools. Students today are used to games and electronics, so it’s not problematic to do something like launch a tool.”

She also sees an inherent connection between paper and ink book publishing and simulation, something that can often be overlooked.

“It can be used in tandem with publishing a book, where you can assign problems that utilize the nanohub as a solution framework. I currently use it this way in my own courses.”

“Another thing about it, is because you can use it as a depository of software, you can develop tools for educational purposes because they help in demonstrating basic principles you are teaching in class. It is highly versatile.”

While some take their first steps, others build their first electronic circuits. Dragica is one of those people who have only known how to push the envelope and move above and beyond. Moving from theory to virtual environments to the classroom experience, she ties together disciplines and acts as a powerful model for this emerging – and blossoming – field.

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