Dr. Yong-fen Hsieh graduated from the Department of Materials Science in 1981. In 1983, she graduated with her masters from the Institute of Materials Science before further obtaining her Ph.D. from the same institute in 1987. During her time at NTHU, she function analytical research in semiconductor metal contact systems. She has been recognized as Distinguished NTHU Alumni this year has more than two decades of contribution to the electronic materials industry and academia.

After graduating from NTHU, Dr. Yong-fen Hsieh joined AT&T's Bell Laboratories for her postdoctoral research on CoSi2 metal silicides, AlGaAs/GaAs surface-emitting laser, GaSb/InSb/GaSb laser diodes, Si-Ge heterojunction phototransistor, YBCO/LaAlO3 superconductor and FeSi3/GaAs metal interface while supporting failure analysis for 4Mb SRAM mass production. She also served at the Materials Research Laboratories and Electronics Research Laboratories of the Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan, participating in the latest industrial technology research at the time—and won the Distinguished Researcher Award from the Materials Research Laboratories in 1986.

Firmly grounded in her experiences with different research laboratories, Dr. Hsieh hoped to further contribute her knowledge and research know-how to the industry. In 1994 she took on the challenge as the department manager at UMC's IC materials analysis laboratories. In 1996, she received the Outstanding Youth Award from the Materials Research Society; and in 1999 she won the UMC Electronics Research and Development Golden Award. Later she took over the responsibility as the Quality Management Department manager at UNIPAC Optoelectronics Corp. When the corporation merged with Acer Display Technology, Inc., she switched to AUP and served as its LCOS Department director, accumulating more valuable management experience.

In the hi-tech industry, research and development departments are often extremely reliant on instrument analysis. Most companies, however, lack the financial support to assume the enormous cost of the instruments or even the costs of the programs to train professional analysts to use the instruments. This presents a challenge to R&D as well as delays the launch of products for many Taiwanese companies. Faced with this issue, Dr. Hsieh had the foresight in 2002 to draw from her experiences in different fields such as IC, TFT-LCD, LCOS, compound semiconductor materials, LED to found the first professional materials analysis laboratories in Taiwan, Materials Analysis Technology Inc. The mission of the company is to improve the technology standard of Taiwan’s hi-tech industry and contribute to fundamental research in academia.

Dr. Hsieh remains in frequent contact with her alma mater. In addition to being the vice chairman of Tsing Hua Entrepreneur Network (TEN), she is also the chairman of NTHU's Alumni Association for the Department of Materials Science. She continues to avidly support NTHU through her involvement advising in the university's fundraising efforts. When she accepted the Distinguished Alumni certificate at the anniversary celebration on April 26th, she modestly said that NTHU's acknowledgement of her achievements is essentially an acknowledgement of the professors who have taught her. Under her leadership and thanks to Professor Lih-J Chen's guidance, Materials Analysis Technology Inc., which was solely founded on her own, went from having no turnover to a listed company in six years. She hopes to continue to her knowledge and know-how to further develop R&D services, as well as expand to include an international market outside of Taiwan.