My my my, boy does time truly fly. I am excited to have arrived in the closing stages within our 6th week in the RET program. It is certainly a relief and joy to finally observe the fruits of my labor. Yay! This week focus involved preparing/ modifying my poster with my mentor, PI, and poster feedback judges. I do wish everyone an effective and efficient poster presentation during this Friday’s Symposium. 🙂
Quote of the day:
I certainly did have a blast last week visiting and learning about more detailed information regarding my fellow colleague’s research labs. It was nice to get out of my lab and to receive a glimpse of how hard others are working on their projects. Keep up the good job guys! 2 more weeks! The BRC labs were my favorite, because they were very tidy and quite relative to my teaching field. I also, had a great time visiting the Sugar Land Water Treatment plant. It was quite interesting that this plant is still fairly new and recently was completed in 2014. This water treatment plant provides residents a water blend ratio of 30% surface to 70% groundwater. Majority of the plant utilizes surface water from nearby Oyster Creek, an offshoot of the Brazos River, to produce nine million gallons of potable water per day. The Sugar Land Water Treatment Plant is the largest capital improvement project ever for the City.It was nice to know that there are Sugar Lang Groundwater Reduction Programs available, such as the “Learning to be WaterWise” water conservation education program. The program involves the education of fourth or fifth grade students in the need for water conservation, by providing student and teacher educational materials and a water conservation kit at no cost to the school or student. Finally, it was awesome to see and learn about the different filter sizes/membranes that are used in the process of treating water.
This week I focused on learning more about the NanoSpectralyzer. The NanoSpectralyzer is used to study the selectivity of single-stranded DNA for different single-walled carbon nanotube structures by quenching of the near-infrared fluorescence of DNA suspended nanotubes in a sodium chloride aqueous solution.
One week down and only so many more to go!! I would have to say that my first week in Dr. Bruce’s lab was quite successful. In this week, I focused on the many lab instruments that will be utilized in my summer research. Some of these instrumentation’s and techniques include: Aqueous surfactant preparation, sonication, and centrifugation. This week, I will become familiar with spectroscopy instrumentation and focus on measurements of fluorescence and absorption on Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes.
I truly had a blast visiting the Oilfield Energy Center’s Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig Museum and Education Center. I enjoyed exploring about the production and technology of each particular kid of Oil rig. We had a wonderful tour guide, who gave the group greater insight about the significance of each type of drill, and explained what major roles they carried out. It was also interesting to learn about the many ways that we utilize oil daily. Finally, the engaging educational sessions were quite informative and provided teachers with helpful activities to integrate in the classrooms.
View Video below:
My first day in Dr. Weisman’s Lab was a great success! My morning began with a thorough tour of the chemistry lab and my mentor (Vanessa ), gave me greater insight about the instrumentation that I will be utilizing this summer. I had an opportunity to sit down and chat with my awesome PI, and ironed out some minor details regarding my research. Majority of my day consisted of me reading a daily dosage of relevant Nanotechnology research papers and books.
