Francis Afzal received his Ph.D from Vanderbilt University in Electrical Engineering on December 2020. For his Ph.D work titled “Investigation of Photonic Crystal Nanobeams for Resonator Coupling, Modal Fingerprinting and Wavelength Filtering”, Francis worked under the direction of Dr. Sharon M. Weiss to investigate the optical properties of photonic crystal nanobeams and their applications. In one key work, Francis collaborated with GlobalFoundries (GF) to demonstrate photonic crystal based filters for MUX/DEMUX applications using GF’s 90WG silicon photonics platform. Francis now works as a principal device engineer at GF’s Fab 8 in Malta, NY to enable the next generation of silicon photonic chips using GF’s silicon photonics technologies.