ME Alum Returns to Campus to Recruit Engineers

On October 15, Dr. Sheng Zhan returned to the University of Maryland for the Fall 2008 Career Fair. Recruiting for his company, Baker Hughes INTEQ (BHI), a leading oilfield services company, Zhan’s objective is to increase the influence of the university in the oilfield industry.

Zhan is currently a Reliability Engineer with BHI in Houston, Texas. He is working on several projects such as optimizing repair and maintenance (R&M) cost while ensuring high-quality service in the field. He has also been assigned as one of the principal project leaders on investigating root cause analyses and developing prognostic health management methodologies for the Measurement While Drilling (MWD) tools in the headquarters of BHI-INTEQ.

Dr. Zhan received his B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, China. Moving to the United States, Zhan later received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, under the advisement of Dr. Michael Pecht. Titled “Surface Insulation Resistance Degradation and Electrochemical Migration on Printed Circuit Boards,” his dissertation focused on assessing the impact of lead-free solder alloys, noclean flux chemistries, green molding compounds, and flame retardants on electronic reliability and improving the reliability assessment methods for electrochemical migration at the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE).

As a University of Maryland alumnus, Zhan believes that the university fully prepared him for the professional world. His best advice for current ME majors is to, “choose the work you like to do, instead of judging only by the salary.” Accordingly, Zhan has fond memories of his time spent at the school and commented that returning, “[Feels] just like I’m back home.”

--Lauren Frye, Mechanical Engineering Student Reporter

Published November 5, 2008