Virginia Tech's UPWARDS K-12 Outreach engages high school students across both Blacksburg and Northern Virginia through immersive programs in semiconductor and microelectronics. The flagship UPWARDS High School Summer Camp is a two-week residential experience at the Blacksburg campus, providing hands-on CAD tutorials, cleanroom fabrication, and circuit/digital system design for rising 10th–12th grade students. The UPWARDS TechTrek High School Program at the Northern Virginia campus in Alexandria runs July 20–31 and August 3–14, 2026, serving the D.C.-area cohort with an emphasis on semiconductors, circuits, chip design, Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA), and Electronic Design Automation (EDA). These programs bring teens face-to-face with leading scientists and technologists, exposing them to both traditional and emerging STEM fields and inspiring future engineering careers.
UPWARDS Seminar Series is held monthly at both Blacksburg and Northern Virginia Campuses.
The series exposes students to cutting-edge research and career pathways in semiconductor integrated circuits through expert-led talks and interactive discussions.
Three sessions were held in Fall 2025 and three in Spring 2026. The series attracted a total of 267 participants across all sessions (140 in Fall and 127 in Spring).
ECE Department Head Dr. Rose Hu gave a presentation about her work in March 2026.
The series fosters academic-industry collaboration, enhances student engagement, and supports UPWARDS goals in workforce development and semiconductor education.
In collaboration with the K–12 Programs at Virginia Tech Greater Washington, D.C., we welcomed high school students from Northern Virginia for an introductory experience in analog system design, semiconductors, and chip design.
The initiative exposes high school students to semiconductor and chip design topics and encourages early interest in related STEM education and career paths.
The event drew 22 participants from high schools in Alexandria and Fairfax County, mostly from Alexandria City High School.
The initiative provided students with an engaging and immersive introduction to the semiconductor field, offering exposure to real project environments and practical applications.
The Micron Educator Hub continues to expand as a valuable resource for educators and students, offering industry-aligned learning materials across semiconductor manufacturing, AI, memory technology, and STEM education. Recent additions over the past three months include modules on photolithography fabrication, data science in memory manufacturing, a comprehensive AI glossary, high-bandwidth memory engineering reports, the 2025 Sustainability report, and K-12 STEM activities like cookie wafer fabrication and SSD building exercises.
Upcoming content will cover problem-solving methodologies (5 Whys), supply chain analytics, neural networks for K-12, dry etch processes, and advanced AI concepts including attention mechanisms and storage-focused glossary terms. All materials are free, open-access, regularly reviewed for relevance, and designed to help educators enhance their curricula with real-world semiconductor industry applications available at micron.com/EducatorHub.
Undergraduate senior design project mentorship serves as a cornerstone of Virginia Tech's UPWARDS program, providing students with hands-on exposure to cutting-edge developments in the semiconductor industry and academia during their final year. Ph.D. student Muhammad Farhan Azmine leads weekly discussions for one ongoing project focused on quantum dot laser process development, running from August 2025 to May 2026 with support from cleanroom manager Don Leber and subject matter expert Purv Bavishi under Dr. Luke Lester's guidance.
Recently completed projects showcased at Virginia Tech's Major Design Experience (MDE) Expos include "A Germanium Laser for Future Quantum Technologies," which investigated ε-Ge/InGaAs quantum well laser structures for mid-infrared integrated photonics applications, and "Simulation of Thermal Transport in Resistive Memory Arrays," which addressed thermal management challenges in ReRAM devices with Ph.D. student support. Most recently, at the April 2025 MDE Expo, a UPWARDS-supported team presented their work on designing and fabricating a quantum dot single-mode laser for telecom applications, successfully demonstrating that S-bend waveguide structures effectively suppress higher-order modes through analytical modeling, Lumerical simulation, and physical device fabrication using deposition and wet etching techniques.
