Coming to imec is a dream come true for a
young scientist. The imec facility is straight out of a sci-fi movie, and
Leuven is simply adorable. It’s a small city of 100,000 people about half of
whom are students from Katholic University (KU) Leuven. It’s old, verdant,
clean, and everyone rides bikes; a picturesque European city.
My 10-week long research project focuses on developing UV-curable polymers for 3D printing microfluidic devices. It’s right up my polymer-science alley and provides me a lot of design flexibility. It also touches on my hobby of 3D printing, which motivates me to move my work from the lab to fabrication quickly. Hopefully, this venture will make it cheaper and easier than ever to fabricate biocompatible devices for onsite patient testing.
My 10-week long research project focuses on developing UV-curable polymers for 3D printing microfluidic devices. It’s right up my polymer-science alley and provides me a lot of design flexibility. It also touches on my hobby of 3D printing, which motivates me to move my work from the lab to fabrication quickly. Hopefully, this venture will make it cheaper and easier than ever to fabricate biocompatible devices for onsite patient testing.
To characterize my products’ bulk chemistry
and degree of polymerization, I’ve been trained to use the Raman spectrometer. Raman
was my favorite and last topic (aka freshest in my mind) from my material and surfaces
class so I was enthused to hear I would get to use it! After numerous safety trainings
this week and waiting for reagents, today I start my experiments.
The administrative business in our first week
gave our group free time to bike around the city, see the sites, and learn the
traffic rules. We also started to get to know our coworkers. They are all very
nice, which is fortunate since I run in to at least one of them almost every
time I’m out in the city!
 |
| Me in the heart of Bruges' old city center right next to Church of Our Lady and the Groeningemuseum |
With Monday off for the Christian holiday of
Pentecost, Sharada and I toured Belgium over the weekend. We hit the cities of Bruges
(which was absolutely stunning), Antwerp, and Brussels. After several tours and
museums, I think I’m starting to get a feel for distinctly Flemish architecture
and art. It was so much fun to learn about the history of each city and some of
their unique quirks. For instance, Bruges has a city official devoted to taking
care of their swans and Antwerp is known for being the diamond capital of the
world and constantly under construction. One commonality was the abundance of
fries, waffles, and chocolate.
 |
| Sharada and me taking in Bruges |
It’s been thrilling to take everything in. Things
keep getting better and I look forward to my remaining time here!
No comments:
Post a Comment