Hear about our summer undergraduate and high school students’ experiences!

Manasa Raghuraman (high school junior), Carolina Rodriguez Carvalho (undergraduate junior), Francisco Ramon Ortiz, and Sala Tamara Ba (coterminal student) worked in our group this summer. We asked them a few questions about their experiences.

Can you describe your summer project?

• Manasa: My summer project was to see what effect substitutions had on PAH molecules' optical properties.
• Carolina: During the summer I worked on understanding the mechanisms of sodium and sodium-potassium batteries and developing a systematic process to build and test them. Our goal was to take advantage of the properties that sodium-potassium gives to the battery anode to improve battery performance and tackle common issues that occur in alkali metal anode batteries - such as dendrite formation.
• Sala: I worked on modeling the formation of carbides in molten metal methane pyrolysis.

What did day-to-day work look like for you?

• Manasa: My day-to-day work usually involved running calculations, understanding the results, and researching what others had already done. 
• Carolina: My day-to-day routine varied depending on what stage of the project we were on. In the beginning it mostly involved building cells and varying several build parameters to understand what worked best and then testing these cells using different methods. We then moved on to a more diverse set of experiments, testing the solubility of different components and diving deeper into our investigation of cell mechanisms using scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy, for example. There were also moments when reading papers about the topic was very important to aid my understanding of the project and of the experiments we were doing. 
• Sala: I mostly worked in MATLAB developing the mechanisms for the project. I would sit down and work until I got stuck, and then I would take a break to eat, exercise, or dance. I also met with my mentor a lot, and she helped me figure out tough bugs and next steps.

What was your favorite part of the research experience?

• Manasa: My favorite part was seeing the results at the end and finding trends that were unexpected or new. This was super cool because it forced us to ask new questions and test new things.
• Carolina: My favorite thing about my research experience was that I learnt something new every day. We were always trying out new techniques and finding new ways to interpret our experimental results, which allowed me to dive into a new realm of knowledge every single day. It was also very rewarding to, at the end of the summer, present my findings in a poster session and share everything I learnt with my peers.
• Sala: My favorite part of research is figuring out why something might not be behaving as you expect. It’s especially satisfying when your guess is correct!

What was the coolest thing you learned?

• Carolina: What I found most interesting this summer was understanding how a research project is structured and how decisions are made to move forward. I got to understand the balance between using experimental and empirical data in decision-making and that is something I will take with me in any future endeavors. There were always seemingly infinite options we could follow in a moment in time, but my mentors guided me through their thought process in deciding which path was best.
• Sala: I learned a lot about how Cantera works (or doesn’t work) and the underlying calculations behind it. But the coolest thing to observe was the PhD student lifestyle. It definitely cemented my aspirations for pursuing a PhD myself!