10 Questions! with MSE Alumna Salay Quaranta

Welcome to our special alumni episode of 10 Questions! for June 2026!

Salay Quaranta is a materials scientist and global manufacturing executive whose career bridges advanced lasers, capital equipment, and high‑performance industrial systems. Trained in materials behavior, microstructure, and process innovation, she has guided engineering, product, and commercial teams across aerospace, medical and dental, additive manufacturing, and precision machining industries. Salay’s career includes mentoring emerging engineers, contributing to peer‑reviewed research, and shaping industry dialogue through technical leadership and speaking engagements. Her work has taken her from UConn’s research labs to international institutes—including collaborations in Germany and across the U.S.—where she has focused on translating processes into scalable, manufacturable solutions. Today, as founder of Q Business Solutions, she advises companies on technology adoption, market strategy, and organizational transformation, driven by the belief that materials, manufacturing, and people are the backbone of progress. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Hi everyone, welcome to a special edition of Ten Questions with Dean Berkey for June 2026. Today's guest is someone whose career sits at the intersection of engineering, manufacturing, business strategy, and innovation. Saleh Coronta is a UConn alumna with both a bachelor's and master's degree in materials science and engineering. And over the past two decades, she's built an extraordinary career in laser technology, advanced manufacturing, and global engineering leadership. From aerospace research in Germany with Fraunhofer ILT and Rolls-Royce to leadership roles at companies like Trump, Stanodyne, and Tsugami America, Soleil has helped develop and commercialize technologies across the medical, dental, and manufacturing industries. Along the way, she's led international teams, managed multi-million dollar product portfolios, and built a reputation for bridging technical innovation with practical business impact. But what makes Soleil's story especially compelling is that she's never lost the curiosity that first drew her into engineering. She still proudly calls herself a laser nerd, and today we're talking about the path from Yukon research labs to global leadership, what students should be doing now to prepare for their future careers, and why material science quietly shapes so much of the world around us. Alright, welcome to the June episode of 10 Questions with Dean Berkey, and I'm super excited today to welcome my first alumni guest, uh Saleh Coranta. And so, Soleil, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Thank you. I'm very, very excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

So you are here today because you're being inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Engineers here in the College of Engineering. You are a 2009 graduate from Material Science and Engineering. And so, to get us started, tell me a little bit about how campus has changed since you were a student here.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

There are so many things that have changed, and then there are so many things that are still fixtures that I'm very pleased to see are here. For example, the engineering building that we're sitting in hasn't changed, still smells the same. Hazelnut coffee and must. But there's so much expansion. The Science One building, all of the new labs, everything that the college has done and the whole school to increase everything that students have available. It's insane. Absolutely insane. The campus is very different in so many ways.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Yeah, no, it's it's fun. Since 2015 or 2016, we've added a lot of new buildings to the College of Engineering. There's the Engineering Science Building, there's IPB, there's now Science One. So so many great opportunities for our students.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

I hope the Foundry is still here.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

I hope so too. So yeah, I know we're we're working on that, but uh because the move from Gantt to Science One. But yeah, foundry is an important part of the MSE program.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

So you've described yourself as a laser nerd, and your career has spanned medical, aerospace, additive manufacturing, advanced machining. What first drew you to lasers and material science in the first place?

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Well, let's start by explaining for those that may not be familiar what is material science? It is the study of fundamental structure and properties of matter. And we use this knowledge to help design, develop, and improve materials as we know them. So you have to master physics, chemistry, and engineering to manipulate materials at the atomic level, and then you use that to implement across a multitude of different disciplines. For myself, it kind of harkened to helping answer a lot of those pesky, but why questions that we grow up asking too many of. And then you get to the laser, which for me is one of the coolest tools to manipulate a material. There's many, but in my humble opinion, the laser is the absolute coolest. It offers you spatial precision, localized processing, you can drive both additive and subtractive abilities. You can use the laser to control phase transitions, employ techniques in spectroscopy, help identify different molecular structures. You can even, Dan, use a high-powered laser to compress matter to pressures millions of times greater than Earth's atmosphere. That's pretty wild. So in effect, material science provided me with the language to understand some of science's biggest problems. And then the laser gave me the way in which to explore more of that world.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Amazing. So a lot of our students, you know, material science and engineering tends to be a small major, especially when students come in, and then it grows as students figure out what it is once they're here and they get exposed to it. So did you come in knowing you wanted to be an MSE major, or did you discover it as a first-year student here, like so many of our students do?

SPEAKER_01 5:13

I elected it right away.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

That was to the help of my parents. My father is a polymer chemist, he is in that field. And then my mother also as an industrial engineer, they they both guided me. I was always very science-minded from probably way younger than I should have been when I was in my father's laboratories. Don't worry, I have all my fingers. But that is a study that then I fell in love with in my own by taking all the classes and having a lot of different opportunities to again get down to that atomic why is something happening? How do we use this information? How can we break a material? That's just fun stuff. So for me, I fell in love with it in my own way.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Awesome. So your career path, I think, is really fascinating because you moved from hands-on engineering and research, then into things like executive leadership, business strategy. So the whole gamut of engineering and uh and technical engineering and then leadership engineering, um, business strategy. How did you make that transition and what surprised you most about leading organizations instead of just doing tech and tech development?

SPEAKER_01 6:28

That transition for me happened over many years, but it was deliberate as I realized I could take on different challenges of a different sort. So it's still an engineering style for me once you got into that other side. But I was able then to navigate global product launches with coordinated efforts from engineering and service teams to applications engineers and marketing. So it was definitely playing across the whole game board. Very fun. And it's a cross-functional delivery that can be mastered. But what surprised me the most was that in those roles, my my function was to lead, right? It was to help guide. But more importantly, I realized that I was intended to help create environments for others to thrive. You align people, strategy, technology so innovation can live. It's engineering, but in a different fashion.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

So I've talked to a lot of our students here about the importance of developing leadership skills and developing things beyond just the technical and so many of our students now are so are so good at that. Is is that something that you started developing here when you were a student, you feel like?

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Yes. I've I remember a number of the chapters, Materials Advantage, the Materials Research Society, these these clubs were opportunities for us to get involved with each other in a leadership manner. But then it also happened in the classroom. So your professor might challenge you to present something. And that can be nerve-wracking. Nobody loves doing it, believe me. There's very few people. I am not one of them. You have to practice it. And the more and more that you do that, the better you become aware of your tone of voice, your delivery, and just you build your confidence. So if you can dive into it, it's gonna be clunky to start. Just go through it.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Like any other skill, you have to work at it and develop it. So it doesn't just happen on its own. Like your technical skills, you know, you gotta do the homework problems, you gotta expose yourself to it multiple times in order to get good at those things.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Yes. And and again, don't don't hate your professors for this. They're doing this for your own good, believe me.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Might not feel like it in the moment, but um, so you worked at Fraunhofer, ILT, in Germany, on laser cladding processes connected to Rolls-Royce aerospace applications, which sounds incredibly cool. Um, what was it like working in an international research environment, and how did that shape your perspective as an engineer?

SPEAKER_01 9:01

So, Fraunhofer Institut für Lase Technique was a masterclass.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Really love the pronunciation there. That was that was very that was basis.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

My German is way out of practice, but I did I did pick up some. Um it was a rigorous, fast, and deeply integrated with industry environment. So think of a think tank style environment. And it was where I have some of my happiest memories. I was part of a core team dedicated to finding the ideal process window for creating blisks. And those are blade-integrated uh discs for hot sections of the gas turbine, an airplane, airspace. And what happened is that information, that research would go on to eventually serve to be the production process that Rolls-Royce used. So, in cooperation with the university there, Avitiya, and the local government sponsors, we worked super long days. We're talking like 10, 11 hour days, but we were having we we really liked what we were doing. We'd go grab Chinese after, we'd go to sleep, and we'd start it all over again. And that research group, um, they became some of my most cherished friends in the industry to this day. I adored working there.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Uh, you still keep in touch with folks from I do, I do.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

I actually just uh the other day received a message from a friend of mine, Chen Hong. And we've we've all scattered around the globe. You know, one individual, um, Dr. Johannes Fitzel, he's now living in Japan with his wife and children. She's from Japan. Um Chen is, I think, still in Cologne. Um we have another individual, um, Dr. Ingomar Kilbasa. Yes, that is his real name, Dr. Kilbasa. He is head of another institute for Fraunhofer. Um, everyone's still somewhat connected and still in the industry.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

So engineering really is you know a global profession. Um, what kind of advice do you have for current students who might be thinking about uh diving into an international component in their undergraduate education?

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Do it. Absolutely. It's one of the things that I would encourage if you are able to, you have the means, you have the will and the ounce of interest, go do it. If you have an opportunity to travel, be it for work or you know, some sort of a study program, research, maybe this happens later on in your career. You're working for a company that says, hey, we have an opportunity to go present a project or we have another location, a subsidiary. If you can, I think you should. You learn so much about yourself, be it this isn't for me, maybe, or you grow your network, you grow your experiences that you just become so much richer for. There is intense value when you travel.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Yeah, a colleague of mine here in my department says that personal development is professional development. And I kind of really like that because you know, going and living in a different culture, experiencing different perspectives, that that has to impact how you think about things professionally, then as well.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

It does. And then because of that, you will have experiences that you can leverage later on. For example, I've had the opportunity to, as you alluded, live and work in many different places of the world. I've done business in Japan and China, I've presented research in Ireland and in Switzerland and so forth. But because of that, if somebody, let's say, is in conversation and they are trying to explain to me what it's like to do business in China, I can say, oh yes, I absolutely know what you're talking about. This was my experience. The conversation gets deeper in that moment. You formed a deeper connection with somebody, they understand you're a global thinker, uh, that you're willing to put yourself into those scenarios. It's a wonderful thing. Travel if you can. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Um one theme throughout your career is this idea of bridging technical innovation with real-world manufacturing and then commercialization. Um, this was really interesting because you know, my last guest on the show is uh Wyeth was a MSE graduate. He's going to Stanford for graduate school in in the fall. And, you know, he talked about doing a lot of outreach in um you know in high schools and other places to tell students about materials engineering and why it's important. So, how do you explain the importance of materials science and engineering and manufacturing to people who might not realize how much it impacts everyday life and all the products that they interact with?

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Oh, that that's a really big one. Um when you think about it, everything you touch, your phone, your car, medical devices, fashion, all of it exists because someone understood materials and someone else figured out how to make that at scale. Material science is in some regards the quiet engine behind every major innovation. And then manufacturing is how the ideas become impact. If you want to change the world, you either change the material or you change the process. So if we can think about it from that vantage point, I think no matter who you are, you may not have a science background, you may not understand the words material science at all. That may be completely new to you. But by just thinking about it in that very fundamental way, I think everyone can understand the importance of studying material science and where it lives within the engineering world.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

That's really interesting because, like you said, ever all these everyday objects you alluded to that people use and might not think about. I use that idea sometimes when I'm talking to first-year engineering students, and they might not know what discipline they're interested in. Like, well, think of an everyday object that you interact with and think about the kinds of engineers that have to interact with that to bring it to you as a product. And what parts of that are exciting to you, right? You know, for a for a cell phone, is it is it the materials of construction? Is it the is it the user interface? Is it the battery? Is it the radio? Like, what parts of that spark your interest? And that can help guide you to what kind of engineering you're interested in. So I think that's a really great, a really great uh idea. Um so while here at UConn, you were deeply involved also in outreach and student leadership, including the Materials Advantage uh student group. You talked about how you designed the logo for that, that I think is still in use, which is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

It is, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Uh helping that chapter win international awards. And so looking back, how important were those non-curricular, out-of-curricular, extracurricular experiences, those students' experiences, how important were they in shaping your confidence and leadership style?

SPEAKER_01 15:53

They were very helpful. Obviously, they're a lot of fun. You're with like-minded people and you're working on an initiative together. And so those platforms, those communities gave me early experiences in leading people, running organizations, getting everybody to work around a cohesive idea. You're defending a decision a lot of times. If you also happen to be somewhere, you know, maybe you're, you know, the secretary or maybe you're the treasurer, you take on these different roles. You get a lot of opportunities with that. So it taught me, of course, you know, the leadership is not about authority, it's responsibility, it's clarity, the momentum being created again to bring everybody together around that common goal. And obviously that translates into your real world careers later on. It is a team effort. There's solely, you know, not often is it solely one person. So if you can get involved in those things and become comfortable in that environment, you're gonna do really well. The real value is of course learning how to build the teams, communicating the vision, and then delivering the results. And those are things that are gonna carry you again later on in your career.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

So your career, you know, has included research, engineering, global leadership, business strategy, entrepreneurship. Looking back over that journey, what do you think about uh what habits or mindsets help you sustain growth and adapt to so many different phases of your career?

SPEAKER_01 17:25

For me, I I think I I've treated my career well in some manners like an experiment.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Just try it. And I mean, you take it seriously, right? You know, it's your job and you want to do well. Um but if you throw yourself out there and you try it again, you're gonna learn something about yourself. You're gonna learn something about the opportunity or that project or that initiative. Maybe it's for you and it's really invigorating. Maybe it's not for you, and you're going, no, but that's that's a learning thing. So you tried it. And that's how I got to experience so many different roles from traditional researcher and engineer to product manager and sales, and then eventually an executive leadership. Um, with each though, you need to reflect on how you're doing. Your colleagues, they're gonna give you a scorecard, you know, your supervisors, they're gonna give you a scorecard that's just performance space that they want you to learn from. But the most important one is going to be from yourself. You need to take stock of am I liking this? Am I doing really well at this? What else should I be doing? Do I want to keep doing this? And I think from that, you know, the the takeaway is that growth comes from motion. Keep moving.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

So some students, that's a great, I think that's great advice because I talk to students sometimes and and they they sometimes get a paralysis or a fear of stepping out of that comfort zone. Well, what if I'm not good at this, right? Engineers tend to be kind of conservative in some ways, right? That's sort of in the blood. Yeah. Um, and so you know, advocating for stepping out of that comfort zone. Like, what's the worst that can happen here, right? If I fail, at least I've still learned something, right? So I I like to talk to students about not being afraid to fail or discover that you don't like doing something that is not for you. At least you experience that, and now you can add that experience to your to your total experience and and use that to, as you say, stay in motion and and and move forward and do different things.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

That is one of the things I think that we don't practice maybe enough is we challenge problems. That's why we're engineers, is we want to learn something, we want to find a solution, we challenge the problem. But can we challenge ourselves a little more, stretch a little further? And it's uncomfortable, like you said. You know, it's maybe you don't want to go way high too soon, too fast, too far. But but ask yourself, you know, can I can I expand my horizon a little bit? Try one thing at a time if you need to, just take one one little step, but keep going.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Terrific. Um you know, it's hard to see sometimes those things in the moment as a student as you're graduating, um, and and think about all right, well, how did this how is how is what I've done here as a student prepared me for for what I'm gonna go do? And sometimes what students think they're gonna go do and what they actually end up going and doing is is very different. But now that you've got the benefit of some hindsight and you can look back uh through a very storied career uh to your time here, uh, how do you think UConn prepared you for your career? And if you had some advice to give to students in terms of like what should they be doing now to set themselves up for success, do you have any specific advice that is uh that might resonate with with current students?

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Yes, I'll I'll start with the first portion of the question. I think UConn in my time here taught me a number of ways on how to think, how to communicate. And also, of course, as engineers, how to navigate ambiguity, right? You have to find boundary conditions, you have to set up some, you know, hypotheses.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Students hate uncertainty sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Ah, but uncertainty can also be very powerful. 100% don't run away from uncertainty. And that harkens back to the Mosa previous, you know, push yourself, grow. The rigor of engineering gave me confidence, the community gave me opportunity. So students, I think, should focus on building a range of relationships, you know, do the research, join the organizations as we talked about, talk to people outside of your discipline. Take an opportunity to get a coffee with your professor afterwards. Not because they're your professor, but just because maybe you want to understand a little bit more about his or her experience. There is a it's a free opportunity. Maybe it costs a coffee. But the point is, you know, build up your community because later on, competence is gonna get you in the Door, but the network and community is what's going to keep you moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

I think that's such a really valuable piece of information because you know we're seeing a lot right now in the world of people sort of craving that personal connection again. Right. You know, technology and so much has made it easier to communicate and connect with people, but in some ways they feel less connected than ever, right? Because it's mediated through some of these, you know, these networks, these uh technological systems. And so just that simple act of actually in-person connection with someone, having sitting down, having a coffee, talking about things, um, that's a really powerful kind of connection that I think is starting to be re-emphasized. And I think it's a really great thing for students to practice why they're here. You're here for four years, right? You have a limited amount of time, it goes faster than you think. Make the most of every one of those moments.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

And this is another thing that I talk about broadly in that you know, you allude to AI and a lot of these other tools of advent that we have at our disposal. To me, those are the best multitasking interns that you could ever hire for yourself, even as a student now. Use them, explore them, master them. But to your point about being able to communicate and form the relationship with somebody, those are, as even I've recently called them, those are power skills that people are desiring. I can find an individual to create all these different outputs and reports for me, but I need somebody that can talk to me. That power skill is becoming lost. Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Absolutely. Um so what are you working on right now? Like what's the latest and greatest, and why are you excited about it?

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Yeah, okay. So right now I'm working on so many different things, Dan. Um I have a shout out to MMF, uh company that I'm working with, and also Denali, RD Corporation. I am consulting companies on global growth and um mergers and acquisition strategies, which to break that down just means that you're analyzing their material portfolios and identifying smart adjacencies of where they might want to get involved with. Very business-y speak, I know. I'm also part of a stealth mode additive manufacturing research grant on laser powder bed fusion, and we're integrating some other wild technologies, which has been incredibly energizing for me. So it's feeding a lot of my material science side. I am supporting a new dental restorative materials development right now, guiding product positioning and sales strategy and negotiations. So again, it's a little right brain-left brain going on. And then finally, I'm in the last and final build phases of launching the She Said It podcast this summer with Dr. Jackie Garafano.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Another Yucanalum.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

She is a Yucan alum. Uh, it's a bold, spunky celebration of women in the field, and there is zero vanilla PR voice to this, so it should be very exciting. There's a lot going on. I'm I'm busy.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Fantastic. Um, so tenth question what is what's your final takeaway, right? Um, you know, maybe what's your favorite memory from a time being a student here, or any other sort of sage advice that you'd leave current students with to inspire them to take advantage of their time here at UConn?

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Ooh. Well, I think first the big takeaway I'd like to have everyone continue is have fun. Don't get too serious. And there's there's plenty of opportunity later to get serious. Absolutely. But even then, just lighten up a little bit. Have fun, but don't you know, don't hold on too tight. And the best memory of Yukon. Ooh, there's many. There's many. But maybe I think one of the things that I can recall um was there were two professors here at UConn, uh, Theoka Thomas and his roommate. So if anybody wants to go on a hunt and figure out who the second professor was, that's fun.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

But uh I think Theo retired a few years now ago.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

He did. He did. But when we learned this, it was fascinating to us as students because then we started asking them different questions and then trying to like, you know, understand what their answers were gonna be. But it learn about your professors. Again, I can't like emphasize that more. Go learn about your professors, the graduate students and their research, explore things. Again, it's an opportunity to have fun and it doesn't cost you anything.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Yeah. But one thing I I like to talk to students about is like, you know, a university is a sort of a very unique place, and there's always a ton of things going on. And go out and explore what some of those things are. Take advantage of the time that you have, right? Tell the freshmen, uh the first year students, right? Eight semesters goes faster than you think. So it does. Fantastic. Well, congratulations again on your induction into the Academy of Distinguished Engineers. It's great to have you here with us tonight. Um, and thank you so much for joining us for our alumni episode, Soleil. I really appreciate you coming by.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Soleil's story is a reminder that engineering careers rarely follow a straight line. What began with curiosity about materials and lasers at UConn grew into a global career spanning research, manufacturing, executive leadership, and entrepreneurship. Along the way, she's shown how technical expertise, adaptability, and communication can open doors across industries and around the world. That spirit of growth and exploration is exactly what because of UConn represents. By supporting research opportunities, hands-on learning, mentorship, and student leadership, UConn gives students the foundation to build careers that evolve far beyond the classroom. Because of UConn, students are able to develop not only technical skills, but also the confidence and perspective to lead teams, solve real-world problems, and shape the future of industry and innovation. As we continue our Alumni Summer Series, conversations like this remind us that the UConn experience doesn't end at graduation. It grows over decades through the people who carry it forward into labs, companies, communities, and industries around the world. Thanks for listening and for celebrating the alumni whose work continues to demonstrate the impact of engineering, leadership, and lifelong curiosity. See you next month for another episode of Ten Questions with Dean Berkey.