Built to Solve Problems

Two Tulane School of Science and Engineering alumni are helping shape the future of optics, advanced materials, and manufacturing at Corning, one of the world's leading research and technology companies.

Every day, billions of people rely on technologies they rarely stop to think about.

The glass protecting a smartphone screen. The optical fiber carrying data across oceans. Precision materials that help make semiconductor manufacturing possible. Components that help enable next-generation displays, advanced medical technologies, and scientific instruments.

Many of those innovations began inside Corning Incorporated, the 175-year-old materials science company whose scientists have spent generations solving some of the world's advanced glass, ceramics, and optical challenges. Long before a product reaches consumers, ideas are conceived, tested, refined, and rebuilt inside laboratories where curiosity and persistence matter as much as technical expertise.

Today, among the many other scientists helping shape that future are two Tulane alumni.

For Wenlei Zhang, '22 Ph.D., Physics, a physicist in Corning's renowned Sullivan Park Research & Development campus, the work revolves around discovering what comes next. Every day presents another scientific puzzle waiting to be solved, another opportunity to imagine technologies that may not reach the marketplace for years.

Across campus, Amy Zhou approaches those same challenges from another direction. Working in Corning's Advanced Optics business, she helps transform scientific discoveries into technologies ready for customers around the world.

Although their careers now follow different paths inside one of the world's premier innovation companies, both trace their professional foundation back to the laboratories, faculty mentors, and collaborative culture they experienced at Tulane University's School of Science and Engineering.

Their stories do not begin in Corning, New York.

They begin inside Stern Hall.

Long before Zhang was designing optical technologies at Corning, he spent countless hours on the fourth floor of Stern Hall surrounded by optical tables covered with mirrors, lenses, lasers, detectors and thousands of carefully aligned components.

To an outsider, the laboratory might have appeared overwhelming. Every mirror angle mattered. Every beam path served a purpose. Every adjustment could determine whether an experiment succeeded or failed.

For Zhang, it became home.

Working under Professor Ryan Glasser while collaborating extensively with Professor Denys Bondar, Zhang immersed himself in quantum optics, nonlinear optics and quantum information science. His research combined sophisticated laboratory experimentation with theoretical modeling, often requiring him to move seamlessly between building experiments and mathematically describing them.

"Wenlei stood out as a graduate student and researcher in that he worked very effectively as both an experimentalist and a theorist," Glasser said. "He spent a lot of time working on a joint DARPA project with Professor Denys Bondar, performing experiments in the lab while also carrying out the theoretical calculations."

That unusual combination would eventually become one of Zhang's greatest professional strengths.

But Tulane represented something deeper than graduate school.

More than twenty years earlier, Zhang had walked those same hallways as a child while his father worked at Tulane as a visiting scholar. After school, he often waited inside Stern Hall laboratories until his parents finished work. Years later, after completing undergraduate studies in China and graduate work in Japan, he returned to the place he already knew.

"It felt like coming full circle," Zhang reflected. 

That familiarity quickly evolved into something much more significant.

Glasser encouraged students to solve problems independently rather than wait for instructions. Experiments rarely followed a script. Instead, graduate students were expected to troubleshoot equipment, develop original research directions and think beyond the immediate project sitting in front of them.

"Yes, absolutely," Glasser said when asked whether that independence was intentional. "I help guide them to problem solve their projects with as minimal hand-holding as required for them to successfully solve those problems. I encourage students to think about new pathways for experiments and projects that stem from the work they're already doing. It's effectively a prerequisite to graduating from our research group that students come up with original ideas of their own."

Those expectations mirrored something larger than academic training. They reflected how scientific discovery actually happens.

Just one floor above, in another corner of Stern Hall, Amy Zhou was helping build something entirely different. When Zhou arrived at Tulane as a postdoctoral researcher in Professor Xin Lu's laboratory, there was little more than an empty room waiting to become a research space.

"The only thing we had in the lab at that time was just an optical table," Zhou recalled. "We spent a lot of time waiting for renovations, then building the whole lab, installing everything." 

Every laser system, spectrometer, detector and optical instrument had to be assembled, calibrated and integrated before research could truly begin. For many researchers, building a laboratory is something that happens around them. For Zhou, it became part of her scientific education. Lu remembers how quickly Zhou distinguished herself.

"She can always quickly understand my explanations regarding optics," Lu said. "What surprised me is that she was a quick learner, even though she had never worked in device fabrication before. In particular, she mastered the wire bonder in only half a day, which is amazing."

As the laboratory took shape, Zhou's responsibilities expanded far beyond assembling equipment.

"Amy was an indispensable partner in establishing my laboratory," Lu said. "Rather than needing constant direction, Amy truly understood the 'why' behind my vision. She proactively took ownership of the setup process, transforming high-level ideas into a functional, sophisticated research environment."

That ownership became one of the defining characteristics of Zhou's time at Tulane. She wasn't simply conducting experiments. She was helping create the environment that made future experiments possible.

Although Zhang and Zhou worked in different laboratories under different faculty mentors, their experiences shared remarkable similarities. Both discovered that Tulane encouraged students and researchers to cross disciplinary boundaries instead of remaining confined to a single specialty.

For Zhou, whose academic background centered on optics, that meant expanding into device fabrication, sample preparation and cleanroom processes while collaborating with researchers throughout the Physics and Engineering Physics Department.

Whenever specialized equipment was needed, another laboratory opened its doors. Whenever expertise existed elsewhere, faculty shared it.

"I think people are really helpful," Zhou said. "Whenever I need something, I just send an email and they always say, 'Of course. You can use our equipment.' The most impressive part technically was the cleanroom." 

Lu believes that collaborative culture gives Tulane students a distinct professional advantage.

"By sharing equipment and expertise across groups, students aren't confined to a single specialty," she said. "They gain exposure to a wider range of instrumentation and methodologies, building a more versatile toolkit that makes them highly adaptable in the workforce."

Just as importantly, she said, students learn how modern science actually functions.

"It develops professional team dynamics. Students learn to communicate across different disciplines and work effectively with people from varied backgrounds. Ultimately, this ecosystem teaches students that science is a team-based endeavor," said Zhou.

That lesson would become invaluable after graduation. While both alumni arrived at Corning exceptionally well prepared technically, they soon discovered that industrial research introduces a challenge few graduate students fully anticipate. Science is only part of the job and being able to work with people matters just as much.

The transition from university laboratories to one of the world's most respected research organizations proved remarkably smooth in one sense and unexpectedly challenging in another.

Neither Zhang nor Zhou questioned whether they possessed the technical skills. Tulane had already given them those. The adjustment came from learning how scientific discovery changes when dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of experts work toward a common objective.

"The biggest transition from grad school to working at Corning is collaboration," Zhang said. "In graduate school, each student has their own project. Here, you have tens or hundreds of people working on the same project, and you have to learn how to collaborate." 

For Zhou, the difference was just as dramatic.

During graduate school and her postdoctoral work, success often depended on a small research team consisting of a faculty advisor, graduate students and perhaps a postdoctoral researcher or undergraduate assistant.

Today, one of her primary development projects includes more than 70 people.

"You need to know how to communicate with people," Zhou said. "It took me time to understand my role, understand other people's priorities and learn how to work within a large team." 

That shift from individual investigator to multidisciplinary contributor mirrors how many of the world's largest scientific problems are now solved.

At Corning, physicists work alongside chemists. Materials scientists collaborate with engineers. Manufacturing specialists partner with computational researchers. Every breakthrough represents the combined effort of experts approaching the same challenge from different perspectives.

Ironically, Tulane had been preparing them for that environment all along.

"Students learn to communicate across different disciplines and work effectively with people from varied backgrounds," Lu said. "In industry, the most impactful work relies on teams that can synthesize diverse perspectives and leverage collective intelligence."

While Zhou helps shepherd technologies closer to customers, Zhang works at an even earlier stage of discovery. His office sits inside Sullivan Park, Corning's legendary research campus where thousands of scientists are researching potential products years before they ever reach manufacturing. Many ideas never leave the laboratory while others quietly become technologies used by millions of people.

Among those projects was working on a team that developed anti-reflective surface treatments for Corning® Gorilla® Glass aimed at aimed at improving viewability in brightly lit environments while simultaneously improving scratch resistance on consumer electronic devices.

The accomplishment represents years of experimentation, refinement, and collaboration before ever appearing in someone's hand. Yet Zhang describes his work less as inventing products than solving puzzles.

"It's basically problem solving," he said. "Every day I'm solving a bunch of tiny problems. If you solve enough of those little problems, they eventually become one huge accomplishment."That mindset sounds remarkably familiar to Glasser. "In academia and industry, there are constant issues that you run into. Being an efficient and effective problem solver is hugely important."

The linkage between Tulane and Corning, he believes, isn't accidental. It is the result of intentionally teaching students how to think rather than simply what to know. Zhou's work unfolds on a different timeline. Rather than focusing exclusively on exploratory research, she helps translate scientific advances into technologies that can eventually support customers around the world.

Her responsibilities center on advanced optical metrology, using sophisticated optical and X-ray techniques to characterize specialty glass and understand how its composition influences performance. Although the scientific principles remain rooted in her doctoral training, the pace feels different.

"In industry, everything moves faster," Zhou said. "You still care about quality, but you also need to keep things moving." That speed never comes at the expense of support.

Instead of working alone, Zhou now finds herself surrounded by specialists who willingly share expertise whenever new challenges arise. "If I need help, I just ask. People are really supportive."

That observation reminded Lu of one of the central philosophies she hopes every researcher carries forward. "My role as a mentor is not to prevent them from hitting dead ends. It is to provide the guidance necessary for them to navigate those challenges independently."

Learning to troubleshoot, pivot, and persist. Those habits extend well beyond graduate school. Neither alumnus speaks about Tulane primarily in terms of coursework. Instead, both describe an environment built on trust. Faculty trusted students to make meaningful decisions, and students trusted one another enough to share equipment, ideas, and expertise. That culture produced something difficult to measure but impossible to ignore.

Confidence.

Looking back, Zhang believes the independence he experienced at Tulane directly prepared him for the freedom he now enjoys at Corning.

"As a scientist at Corning, nobody tells me exactly what to do," he said. "Someone comes with a problem and asks if I can solve it. Nobody tells you what tools to use or what methods to use. You have to figure that out yourself." 

Likewise, Zhou credits Tulane not only with strengthening her scientific abilities but also with helping her adapt to an entirely new country and culture. Coming to New Orleans after completing her education in China required learning new communication styles, new expectations and new ways of collaborating.

"Tulane really helped me. Everyone was helpful. Everyone was willing to share their thoughts and help each other."

Today, both alumni continue building careers that look remarkably different from the ones they imagined when they first walked into Stern Hall.

Zhang has begun exploring potential collaborations between Corning and Tulane, including discussions at Sullivan Park on emerging research at the intersection of optics and artificial intelligence.

For Glasser, watching former students succeed never loses its emotional impact.

"Quite simply, I couldn't be prouder," he said. "Seeing students progress and have successful careers after leaving Tulane is easily my favorite part of the job."

Lu feels much the same watching Zhou's career continue to grow.

"Seeing Amy at Corning is incredibly rewarding," she said. "Her success serves as an inspiring example for my current group members. Having a peer successfully transition into such an impactful role provides them with a tangible roadmap for their own future."

For students walking through Stern Hall today, those paths remain very much alive.

Every experiment assembled on an optical table.

Every afternoon spent inside a cleanroom.

Every difficult problem that refuses to yield an immediate answer.

Those moments are preparing students for careers they cannot yet fully imagine.

Today, Zhang hopes to welcome his former professor back to Corning one day to present some of his new research findings, while Zhou continues helping develop advanced optical technologies alongside multidisciplinary teams tackling some of optics' most complex challenges. Their careers may have taken them hundreds of miles from New Orleans, but the habits that shaped them at Tulane, curiosity, independence, collaboration and the confidence to solve problems without waiting for someone else to provide the answer, continue guiding the work they do every day.

And somewhere inside Stern Hall, another student is almost certainly beginning that same journey.