JANA CHALAK

Engineering Program Manager with 10 years of industry experience in Continuous Improvement and Advanced Development. Proficient in 3 languages (Arabic, English, French). Thrives in multi-cultural settings. Has demonstrated leadership skills in cross-functional teams inside and outside the US, spearheading product and platform development projects with global contract manufacturers in China, Taiwan, Thailand, and Mexico.

Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Medford, MA, USA, 12/2022

• Industry Consulting Project (Team Practicum at Tufts, Jun - Aug 2022): Provided a manufacturing strategy recommendation to Ionic Materials (IM), a startup based in Woburn, Massachusetts (USA).

– Objective: Expand the company’s Liquid Crystal Polymer Films product to Asia by Q2 2024.

– Approach: Assessed three different expansion options (tolling, going alone, and joint venture) by building and comparing qualitative and quantitative metrics across 5 selected Asian countries

– Analytical Framework: To support the recommendation with data, a decision model was created in Excel that integrates a 5-year investor return analysis with a price sensitivity analysis, while also utilizing a qualitative score and a risk matrix to account for factors such as: IP concerns, time-to-market, proximity to customers, logistics, communication barriers, and country/company culture.

– Recommendation: Tolling manufacturing in Taiwan emerged as the most viable and cost-effective expansion form for IM.

• Battery Model Design (Senior Thesis at AUB, Sep 2013 - Apr 2014): Worked as part of a team of 3 members to develop a dynamic battery model capable of accurately determining its internal parameters. The model considered factors such as the state of charge, temperature, and corrosion effects, and it was inspired from literature and project sponsors at Hochschule Esslingen University of Applied Sciences in Germany.

– Plan of action: Created a new model that takes into account non-linear capacity and recovery effects.

– Execution phase: Tested and implemented models using MATLAB program to obtain battery parameters at different temperatures and states of charge. Simulated the models using data collected from an experiment performed on a real battery. The experiment was conducted using proper equipment and instruments such as an impedance meter

– Conclusion of Design Project: To describe a new method and algorithm that finds the best operational model of a specific battery along with its different internal parameters

– Validation: Insured that both the simulated and experimental models are equivalent

– Paper Writing and Publication: Participated as part of a team in the 13thFEA (Faculty of Engineering and Architecture) Student & Alumni Conference and presented the project’s paper entitled “Estimation of Battery Internal Parameters”. The paper was then published in the 2015 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Technology (ICIT) that took place in Spain

– Paper Link: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7125278/