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Chemists like to call their discipline the fundamental science. There is chemistry in
almost everything.
The focus here at UC Merced is more physical based, so what we do is materials energy resource,
so we've sort of taken that to a core area.
We have four different emphasis tracks with in the program. There is physical, organic,
chemical biology and computational. We have faculty that expand a wide range of research
areas from biochemistry to physical chemistry, chemical physics, material science.
That also involves analytical chemistry to be able to look at something that nobody else
has looked at before. You've got to be able to really attack it and figure out how to
unravel a problem yourself.
We try to give you course work that gives you a basic foundation in some of the principles
areas of chemistry
What they come out with is a set of skills whereby they are component synthetic chemists.
They understand the quanta mechanics they understand spectroscopy. But perhaps the most
saleable skill that they have is that they understand the instrumentation.
Other institutions, there is a sign in sheet and it can take a couple weeks before you
get to use the machines.
The instrumentation that I've been able to use here, the scanning electron microscope,
x-ray diffractometer, the atomic force microscope, potentiostats, chronoamperometry, chronopotentiometry,
cyclical telemetry.
The instrument our group uses the most is something called an atomic force microscope.
To me this is like the coolest toy ever because you get to look at stuff that's so small that
you can't see it on a microscope. I'm using it to image single DNA molecules on a surface.
Part of our group is researching nanowires so we have equipment related to that as well,
glove boxes, spin coaters, thermal evaporators.
It's a 400 megahertz NMR machine and we have one more on campus and everybody gets to use
it in the chemistry department or physics department, bio physics, but its in my lab
and there is only four of us in charge of it.
My research project is to find an entirely new type if battery and I'm working on rechargeable
aluminum ion batteries. The idea behind the aluminum ion battery is to use a metal that
is more abundant, less toxic, and far cheaper.
I'm working in a field called DNA nanotechnology. We're using DNA to try to assemble really
tiny structures that might have applications in either medicine or electronics.
Because the groups are smaller we don't have 10 or 15 people with each one being a specialist
on one type of equipment or microscope so you get a wide variety of training and it
gives you a better background, its also more interesting. You're not stuck just doing one
thing for five years.
When I came here I really got the impression that its sort of like a start up company so
people that I met seemed really motivated and work hard to try to put it on the map.
It's a very tight nit community and we all sort of use our strengths to design these
more collaborative research projects.
There is really good collaboration at this school, in terms of getting to talk to other
people working in maybe related but different fields, getting their input on your work,
getting to see what they're doing constantly.
A catalyst is a little molecular machine that makes reactions happen and normally regenerates
itself. The ultimate goal is to increase the efficiency of catalytic synthesis, or design,
or cost effectiveness, things like that for industry.
Matthew Christian: We're starting this new subject called topological insulators, also
known as 2D semiconductors. They're very excellent for this, for spintronics, or basically what's
going to be used in quantum computers.
Many of our students have the opportunity to get involved with other faculty not only
here on campus but also at other institutions and that can be you know a really broadening
experience for anybody.
I have a number of different collaborations with other faculty here on campus in the chemistry
group; more broadly, we work very very closely with people in engineering and physics.
UC Merced has managed to recruit some quite well known faculty members in various departments,
so there's a high level of professionality, but there is also a nice side of being able
to just enjoy them as people.
The smaller group allows you to really explore, and allows you to be fearless. You can get
at research problems and allow yourself to make those mistakes and grow from them very
quickly, if you have, if you have sort of the comfort that your faculty advisor is right
behind you.
I think that we are able to offer vary good mentorship to our students largely because
you know our program is small and every one of our students is really important to us.
My mentor, when I first started, he related to me that he wanted the working relationship
to more of one between colleagues rather than the boss and the student.
I rely on them to become and develop into strong, independent researchers, so I rely
on them to be able to grow the project themselves.
At a big school there's hundreds of students and they all want to see the professor and
therefore none of them get to. Here, its small enough you can go and knock on pretty much
any door and they're always happy to talk to you.
So in our program we normally assume that any student who's in good academic standing
is always going to be supported. We have here, an enormous need for teaching assistants and
the ones who are not serving as teaching assistants are generally supported as graduate student
researchers.
Merced is within a couple hours of a few different ski resorts and its also not too far from
Tahoe so its nice to be not too far from snow but also a couple hours from the beach.
So if you're sort of an entrepreneur and you'd like to have a bit of a start up spin that
you can put on your resume, it's a good school for that.