When I came here actually, I wanted to be a chemical engineer 
because in high school I was very interested in chemistry
and I knew I wanted to be an engineer so it seemed like a logical conclusion.
And I set myself on that curriculum right away 
and I started taking the classes that would lead me up to graduate in that.
And taking a class, it was a 300-level chemistry class, my second semester
and I suddenly realized that the material I was learning
wasn't something I was interested in.
And at the same time I was taking EPD 101 
which is an engineering seminar for freshmen
where they have people from industry come in
that have different backgrounds and different majors.
And I heard a lady from Materials Science and Engineering,
who actually graduated from here, talk about her discipline
and I said to myself, this sounds like something I'd like to do.
I really like to look at the fundamental, the way things work.
And I think that's pretty much the foundation of research,
is that we're looking at things we don't fully understand,
and in order to make them better we need to look at the fundamental level
and go from the ground up in improving them.
We work with materials that exhibit behavior called superconductivity.
And this was discovered almost a hundred years ago
but the materials that have been developed that exhibit this behavior 
have been changing since the beginning.
We work with a material that was discovered in 2001,
called magnesium diboride
Now, the primary focus of our work has been taking the pure magnesium diboride
and adding other things to it
which is called doping
to try and improve its properties.
We were looking at the results and something didn't check out
and I asked, "Well, why does that happen?" and my graduate student said,
"Well, I don't know."
And this is the thing I've been waiting for I guess, you know as an engineer.
When something like that comes up and I don't know,
well, okay, let's figure it out. 
So from that point I designed an experiment, I carried it out,
we got some useful results, and from that point on
that's been the fashion of how I work.
The professors here are, they're of a really high caliber.
They're extremely intelligent, it's really good to work with them 
and they can impart all sorts of knowledge to you.
The relationship you have with them is a really interesting one in that
you come here just to learn from them and maybe you don't expect much else but 
the amount that they are willing to go out of their way to help you out
is amazing.
Getting a job here, you know getting recommendations for summer jobs, basically...
I mean these are the things that build your career and build your life.
And they give you amazing support in accomplishing those things.
Copyright 2006 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
Date last modified: Wednesday, 22-Feb-2006 14:19:00 CST
Date created: Wednesday, 22-Feb-2006 14:19:00 CST