Speakers

Thomas is the Senior Director of Asia Media Development at Seagate Technology, where he leads the media development launch organization. His team is responsible for replicating and qualifying new media designs and transferring them into volume manufacturing. With over two decades of experience at Seagate, Thomas has held various management positions, including roles in Media Research on patterned media, DNA storage, Recording Physics, and spin-stand test characterization. He has also held positions at Seagate's recording head development, managing head yield, failure analysis (FA), and product performance analysis. Before joining Seagate, Thomas began his career at IBM (later HGST) and Readrite Corporation, where he worked on recording head design and held management positions in advanced recording characterization, IBM’s enterprise hard drive integration, head wafer fabrication and process development. Thomas holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, where he studied at the Magnetics and Information Technology Center (MINT). He has authored over 30 professional publications and holds more than 50 patents. At Seagate, he received two Patent Hall of Fame awards and Seagate's Technical Achievement Award in 2017. At IBM, he was recognized with the Top 30% Most Valuable Patent award in 2000 for his development of the planar stitched write head design.