Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
My interest in science was sparked by my high school physics and chemistry teacher, Mr.
Tiener essentially let me do what I wanted. He let me alone in the lab, he let me experiment,
he let me explore, and that really opened the door. The second I walked into the Cyclotron
Lab, I knew this was the place I had to be; it was full of energy, it was full of young
people, there were students who were engaged and involved in the process, and the environment
was just so so energetic. One of the basic diagnostic devices that's used now for medical
sciences is medical resonance imaging, or MRI, the techniques that we use to study our
isotopes are very similar to the techniques that are used in MRI. We're doing nuclear
magnetic resonance on sample sizes that are smallest, ten to the four or ten to the five
particles, which are sixteen or seventeen orders of magnitude smaller than what we normally
see in typical diagnostics so hopefully some of the developments that we do for high sensitivity
could someday be applied to increase the sensitivity of these diagnostic-type of devices. There's
always something new on the horizon, and always be reaching for that next goal is an environment
that you really want to be in, it's very stimulating. With the facility for rare isotope beams seemingly
around the corner here at Michigan State University is another carrot on the stick to continue
this drive to be successful and hopefully a very positive contributor to MSU, to the
laboratory, and to my department. I like the challenge of the unknown; I think that one
of the things that I tell my students, 'What's a Ph.D.? A Ph.D. tells you you can solve problems.'
Just because you get a Ph.D. in science doesn't mean that you should always be a scientist,
it says that you have the abilities to solve problems, and I think that everyday challenges,
solving problems, helping other people realize their ambitions and dreams by solving the
problems that I can address in my role, essentially is what gets me out of bed every single day.