I’m a second year physics major, and I work in Songi Han’s physical chemistry lab. This summer I have been very grateful to have the opportunity to be financed to work through the Gorman Scholar Program. I started working in the Han lab Spring quarter 2016. We do research on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR); it’s the natural phenomena that is utilized in medicine for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and in chemistry for spectroscopy, which looks into the properties of materials, structures of molecules, and dynamics of molecular systems. Specifically, my responsibilities have been to help design and build NMR probes. This entails a lot of soldering parts, fashioning coils, crafting other probe components, and operating 3D design software. I’ve been lucky to be for the most part in charge of myself, being able to make a lot of my own decisions and manage my own time, as well as to have the opportunity to learn so much more than I can in the classroom. Working here has not only taught me software and design, but also how to teach myself complex concepts and read scientific publications effectively. Overall, the time I’ve spent in lab has only made me more enthusiastic and driven to do science as a career. I look forward to what the future holds for me and where the work I am doing now will lead me.

One unique aspect of our experiments is the incredibly low temperatures we go to. We often work at liquid helium temperatures, which is around 4-10 Kelvin (room temperature is around 298 Kelvin). We go to these low temperatures to get a noticeable increase in the performance of our coils.

My mentor brings his dogs to work =D