Alumni Spotlight: Philip Kraus
Philip Kraus, (Ph.D. 1999, Advisor: Allen Goldman)
Philip Kraus is Head of Superconductor Process Development at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which was spun out of MIT and is uniquely positioned to deliver the fastest path to commercial fusion energy. Kraus is the inventor of more than 60 patents and the author of more than 40 publications. He earned a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Minnesota and a B.S. in Engineering Science from the Pennsylvania State University.
What helped you decide to come to the University of Minnesota for your education?
I wanted to study solid state physics and superconductivity, and my undergraduate thesis advisor at Penn State suggested a few schools with strong programs in experimental superconductivity, which included Minnesota because of Prof. Goldman. After visiting and talking with Allen, I decided to come to Minnesota.
Who were your favorite professors?
Earl Peterson (Quantum Mechanics) and Oriol Valls (Mathematical Methods). Fantastic classes.
What were your favorite classes?
Quantum Mechanics, Mathematical Methods, Statistical Mechanics, Plasma Physics, and Superconductivity. I also really gained a lot from being a TA for undergraduate physics courses. It is 100% true that if you want to understand something, teach it.
What were some of your favorite memories of your time while you were here?
I took advantage of the range of lab environments at Minnesota between the Physics, EE and Materials Science departments. I deposited superconducting thin films, characterized them with every analysis technique I could find, processed them into devices in the EE clean room, and then tested them back in cryostats in Allen's lab. Having access to all this gave me a very broad experimental background, and I have been leveraging that breadth ever since.
I really value the way Allen ran his research group. It was a good mixture of freedom & guidance -- free to try various things, but guided on what's a good line of inquiry. Allen was very knowledgeable and wanted his students to work on research that would advance the field. Problems would come up of course, but if the research was potentially useful, it was worth the effort to overcome the problems.
I remember passing the oral exam, which is part of advancing in the Physics grad school program. I have a very deliberate style, and so I took a rather long time to answer each of the questions my committee asked me. I finished thinking that I may have left the professors with the impression that I was unsure on one or more topics. But Allen emerged from the meeting room after just a minute or two with a big smile, telling me "that was great!" and that I had passed with almost no debate.
Earl Peterson telling me that my thesis was extremely well written was another highlight. He told me he was not sure he understood it all, but that it was a pleasure to read.
I also had a lot of fun establishing the Ultimate team at the U. In 1997, myself and a few other students who were playing club Ultimate in Minneapolis thought that we could put a team together for the U and compete in the college season. We weren't very good the first year, but became a little better the next year, and the club continued in the years to follow. I think the team won a college national championship in the 2010s, and it's cool to think of being connected to that even if remotely.
Do you have any humorous stories to share about your time at the School?
During my first term, in my first winter, I was walking to campus and it was about -10F outside. The wind kicked up, and my eyelashes froze, and for a moment my eyes were frozen open! I was pretty shocked, but when I got to campus the students who were from MN let me know this wasn't that unusual and we had a brief laugh.
After that, I got better at handling the winters, for the most part. In my final winter, I did not properly adjust the antifreeze in my car, and the block cracked one very cold February night. That was sadly the end for that car, and being a broke grad student, I paid the tow company by letting them have it for whatever they could get for scrap.
I took the Superconductivity class from Anatoly Larkin, who was a very well respected theorist who had been teaching in Russia for nearly all his career, and joined the TPI in about 1996. However, Dr. Larkin's English was not that good, and it was difficult to understand him many times in lecture. After a few lectures, students were dropping the class, until it was just myself and about 10 other physics grad students who could speak Russian. Recognizing this, the class switched to Dr. Larkin lecturing in Russian, and every few minutes he would stop and the students would translate and relay to me. This worked well enough for all involved, and we finished the course like this. I was told later by one of the students that they referred to me as "the American superhero" for hanging in there. We had a good laugh when he told me this.
In the final push to complete my thesis, I decided to switch to a 36 hours awake / 12 hours asleep schedule for about 3 months. I didn't tell any of my lab mates that I had done this, but after a few cycles of seeing me anytime for a day and a half, they had questions. I explained that I needed to be 75% productive rather than typical diurnal 67%. Most of my lab mates thought I was crazy, but it was workable and I finished the work and successfully defended on my target date. I should add, however, that I don't recommend doing this -- it took about 6 months to recover back to normal.
Tell us about your career
I have worked in different industrial applications of solid state physics; I've worked my entire career in Silicon Valley. Because of the variety of activity here, I have been able to work on different technologies at both large companies and at startups. This includes work in the semiconductor industry, photovoltaics, LEDs, energy storage, and most recently fusion systems. I started in capital equipment for the semiconductor industry, then did 4 different startups over 10 years, and then another 8 years again in semiconductor. In the semiconductor industry, I worked on many types of plasma systems that are used by the industry. Currently, I am at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which uses superconducting magnets and it's great to take what I have learned in other industries and use it at CFS. I'm also excited to be working on superconductivity again.
What was/are your favorite parts of your job?
I found over time that I am good at leading technology teams, and carrying new technologies from R&D to manufacturing. Building and leading a successful team is not a taught skill, and one picks it up along the way.
With new technologies that have not yet jumped from lab scale to high volume manufacturing, there are many obstacles to that transition. For me, it's actually much more fun to build a manufacturing line than to do research in a way that is similar to academic research. Manufacturing is a data rich environment, and when trying to put a new material or technology into manufacturing, one can learn a lot.
Where did you grow up? What was the best part of growing up there?
I grew up in Erie, PA. My grandparents lived about a block from us, and I worked with my grandfather doing odd jobs at his house. I learned how to plan work, how to use tools, how to change a tire, trim trees, paint a wall, and so on. I made a lot of mistakes but we would just keep moving forward, and over time I was given more autonomy. I also had a lot of fun playing high school basketball, and we had a pretty good team in 1988, making the Pennsylvania big-school Final Four.
What got you interested in physics?
I had always been curious about how things work, I was good at math, and I liked to work with my hands. I began as an undergraduate at Penn State in Mechanical Engineering, but changed to Engineering Science after deciding the breadth of that curriculum was more interesting. When taking Intro to Materials Science in my junior year, I had a lot of questions, mostly around the nature of bonding in solids. My professor told me that these were beyond the scope of the class, and suggested I take some physics classes. I took mostly senior level physics classes for the next 3 semesters and added a Physics minor to my ESci degree. I liked that Physics did not think anything was beyond the scope.
During that same time period, I started working in Prof. Moses Chan's lab in Penn State's Physics department. Moses was a great experimentalist in low temperature physics, and working with him and his students gave me a start in lab work and experimental physics.
Tell us about your family.
We live in San Jose, CA, and my wife Peri and I have a daughter and a son. Both our kids are good students and have been active at their high school, playing field hockey and track, respectively. They are both interested in STEM, and my daughter is attending the Colorado School of Mines this fall, while my son tells us that he wants to study Physics in college. We'll see! We are proud of them both. In addition to our kids, pets are a constant part of our family -- at one point we had 4 dogs, a cat, a bunny, and 3 chickens.
What are your hobbies?
I really like woodworking. In the past decade I've made 5 beds, a desk, a coffee table, some simple bookshelves. Accommodating the imperfections in the wood while maintaining the design is a good challenge.
What are some of your beliefs on how to be successful?
It is important to be curious all the time, to be open to information however it comes to you, and to know your biases. Many times the unintentional experiment, or a happenstance conversation, are the start of insight. It's a tricky thing to be both focused and open at the same time, but it's very useful.
One way or another, find a way to learn about topics that were not part of your degree program. If you study science or engineering, find someone who can teach you, for example, the basics of finance, or group dynamics, or logistics, or marketing, etc.
One's network is a super valuable asset, and should be consciously developed and maintained over time. Your network will create opportunities for you, and provide both advice and criticism when you need it.
What advice do you have for current students and recent alumni?
Startups are a great way to learn new things, to find and work with other smart and motivated people, and to learn about yourself. But they have a very different risk profile than working at established companies -- almost all fail. You just never hear about the ones that do. If you have an interest in startups, examine how much risk you can tolerate.
The semiconductor industry is an amazing machine that constantly remakes itself, and has many strata that require the know-how from nearly every part of engineering and the hard sciences. With the growth expected in the next decade, there should be good career opportunities.
If motivated by large scale problems, there is none bigger than establishing an industry that can produce power with a minimum of externalized negative outcomes. There are many entities large and small working in this area.
Is there anything else you would like us to know about you or your career?
My resume is rather busy, but I have probably done much less actual career planning than most. I moved as opportunities arose or circumstances changed, and I follow my interests and evaluate if I will be able to add value.