Speaker: Christina Issa
Introduce yourself and tell us about your co-op this semester.
Christina Issa: Hello, my name is Christina and I am a rising junior at Warmth Institute of Technology. I'm studying electromechanical engineering and I finished my physics minor this previous semester. So for my optional co op, I decided to work as a physics research co op here at Wentworth. Uh This is actually our lab and our research mainly focuses on the exfoliation and stacking of Vander's materials to be used for later study. And this project has been continuing or is now being continued from uh last summer.
While on co-op, what is a project that you've been a part of that has inspired you?
Christina Issa: I'd say my favorite and most inspiring project that I've worked on this summer is updating the Vanderwal Transfer Station that we have, which is essentially a device that is hooked on to one of our electron microscopes. And it allows us to pick up really nice flakes of thin graphite uh from a silicon oxide chip and transfer it using a polymer stamp to a to the stack that we want to build. So we can pick up the layers of Mica habar nitride uh graphite and make layers. And that is essentially the goal that um this entire co op is about. And the transfer station specifically is the most engineering based project that we've worked on, which I really appreciate because I am in electromechanical engineering. Um But I do have also a strong interest in physics, which is why this co op has just been an incredible experience for me. Uh The transfer station itself required a lot of 3D printing and three modeling techniques which I not only had to use for my past experience but also learn new ones. And it's been just very fun like identifying issues, you know, uh scratching your head about them and working with the rest of the team to uh to fix those issues. And I think just specifically the engineering um techniques that we've had to use are, have been uh my favorite parts really. And honestly, it's validated my interest in the field from the first place and, you know, continuing throughout my major. I'd say that is why this project has been the most expiring because it allows me to confidently move on with the. It's definitely, it's been the first project that I've had that allows me to confidently move on with the rest of my uh field knowing that OK, this is something I'm incredibly interested in. I would like to continue working on this in the real world.
What have you learned that you will use in your career?
Christina Issa: I'd say the most important skill that I've learned from this co op is keeping very detailed records on a day to day to day basis. So I have kept records and like information on prototypes from previous projects that we've done in other classes. But because this project is not just um closed in on my co op or, you know, it is extended to other periods of time and to other people who may be working on it. Uh I need to keep records of the experiments I've done and you know how those turned out what parameters I changed. Um The literature searches, I've done what information proved to be helpful. What isn't so helpful in our context, the 3D prints and 3D models, how those came out their dimensions and everything needs to be written down or at least recorded um somewhere like we also have a Google Drive and um in addition to our life notebooks, and it's because other people are going to see our work and or at least continue our work. So it would be really helpful and not waste more time, effort and resources on repeating the same experiments or printing out and reading the same um papers is just already there. Um So doing that, I think on a day to day has, has proved to be really helpful and I think will ultimately benefit me throughout the rest of my career.
