What are you researching/developing

[MelchyBeau]

I figure since there are so many engineers and science types, I'd ask this question. Also what is your degree in.

I have a B.S. in Physics, and will go for my masters in a bit

I am working on solid state power electronics, specifically diodes and thyristors that are to handle 16 and 20 kV

Melch

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

I'm finishing up analysis of a component of a new hybrid launch vehicle that Lockheed Martin is in the early stages of development of for DARPA, NASA, and the Air Force. Unfortunately, I didn't do anything terribly exciting for it - just some composites structural analysis. It is a pretty cool rocket, though.

My degrees are in Mechanical Engineering (BS) and Aerospace Engineering (MS).

[wacki]

Cancer, aging, cellular division, and immortaily.

[Frequitude]

Programming a microcontroller to
a)monitor the voltages & currents of an induction motor
b)analyze the data to determine if any rotor bars are cracked. If so, output how broken it is and which bar it is.

[hobbsmann]

I'm currently working toward a PhD in atmospheric chemistry in which my specific focus is modeling the phase transitions of aerosols.

[phage]

I have a PhD in microbiology. Currently my research is focused on bacterial-host interactions

[parttimepro]

I use MRI to figure out how memory is implemented in the brain.

Almost done.

[wmspringer]

My degrees are in computer science, but I don't actually use them; found I got more satisfaction as a math teacher.

But when I was doing research, it was on graph theory with an emphasis on the four color problem.

[SpearsBritney]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm finishing up analysis of a component of a new hybrid launch vehicle that Lockheed Martin is in the early stages of development of for DARPA, NASA, and the Air Force. Unfortunately, I didn't do anything terribly exciting for it - just some composites structural analysis. It is a pretty cool rocket, though.

My degrees are in Mechanical Engineering (BS) and Aerospace Engineering (MS).


[/ QUOTE ]

Are you joking? I can't tell. If so, that's hilarious. If not, that's pretty impressive.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm finishing up analysis of a component of a new hybrid launch vehicle that Lockheed Martin is in the early stages of development of for DARPA, NASA, and the Air Force. Unfortunately, I didn't do anything terribly exciting for it - just some composites structural analysis. It is a pretty cool rocket, though.

My degrees are in Mechanical Engineering (BS) and Aerospace Engineering (MS).


[/ QUOTE ]

Are you joking? I can't tell. If so, that's hilarious. If not, that's pretty impressive.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure where the joke is implied. This is what I do.

[Richie Rich]

I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

[SpearsBritney]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm finishing up analysis of a component of a new hybrid launch vehicle that Lockheed Martin is in the early stages of development of for DARPA, NASA, and the Air Force. Unfortunately, I didn't do anything terribly exciting for it - just some composites structural analysis. It is a pretty cool rocket, though.

My degrees are in Mechanical Engineering (BS) and Aerospace Engineering (MS).


[/ QUOTE ]

Are you joking? I can't tell. If so, that's hilarious. If not, that's pretty impressive.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure where the joke is implied. This is what I do.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I didn't know that. It just seemed like you were sarcstically one-upping the OP. You don't think you're ever really gonna run into a "rocket scientist" /images/graemlins/grin.gif Pretty cool man.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm finishing up analysis of a component of a new hybrid launch vehicle that Lockheed Martin is in the early stages of development of for DARPA, NASA, and the Air Force. Unfortunately, I didn't do anything terribly exciting for it - just some composites structural analysis. It is a pretty cool rocket, though.

My degrees are in Mechanical Engineering (BS) and Aerospace Engineering (MS).


[/ QUOTE ]

Are you joking? I can't tell. If so, that's hilarious. If not, that's pretty impressive.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure where the joke is implied. This is what I do.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I didn't know that. It just seemed like you were sarcstically one-upping the OP. You don't think you're ever really gonna run into a "rocket scientist" /images/graemlins/grin.gif Pretty cool man.

[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks. It is a pretty cool job. Also, it does say 'sciencing rockets' in my location.

[SpearsBritney]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm finishing up analysis of a component of a new hybrid launch vehicle that Lockheed Martin is in the early stages of development of for DARPA, NASA, and the Air Force. Unfortunately, I didn't do anything terribly exciting for it - just some composites structural analysis. It is a pretty cool rocket, though.

My degrees are in Mechanical Engineering (BS) and Aerospace Engineering (MS).


[/ QUOTE ]

Are you joking? I can't tell. If so, that's hilarious. If not, that's pretty impressive.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure where the joke is implied. This is what I do.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I didn't know that. It just seemed like you were sarcstically one-upping the OP. You don't think you're ever really gonna run into a "rocket scientist" /images/graemlins/grin.gif Pretty cool man.

[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks. It is a pretty cool job. It does say 'sciencing rockets' in my location.

[/ QUOTE ]
hey, I'm no rocket scientist /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[jgodin]

Hey Hey, fellow math teacher!!

I started out as a mathematics major , looking to work specifically in number theory. Have always loved teaching and decide to switch over to math ed. after sophomore year. Figured I'd teach a little while to pay the bills and save some cash (ha!), go back to get M.S and Ph.D. in a few years. Married now, two kids, going back into my third year of teaching. Up to my jaw in debt. Looks like "30 and out" for me.

Do miss those proofs classes though...

[setzf]

allright this is a great thread full of nerd-dom. im a math phd student. no research work at the current moment but i do work in mathematical logic, model theory specifically.

[ceyoung]

i have a chemical engineering/materials science and engineering b.s.

currently doing high pressure mineral physics

[Jeff W]

I have a B.S. in physics. I sleep most of the day. Layabout? No, don't worry, I gamble on the internet at night. <font color="white">Props to Spamuell. </font>

[jason_t]

I am PhD student in mathematics studying the Banach space H^p of analytic functions.

[Utah]

"I am PhD student in mathematics studying the Banach space H^p of analytic functions. "

I am pretty sure that someone studying the Banach space H^p of analytic functions doesnt get to bang strippers (as you tagline says) without a credit card.

[gumpzilla]

Ph.D. student in physics. Up until now my specialty had been theoretical condensed matter, in particular some work with organic conductors. But, with my current advisor running out of funds in the next couple weeks, it's looking reasonably likely that I'll be making a jump into experimental work.

[daryn]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In risposta di:</font><hr />
I have a B.S. in physics. I sleep most of the day. Layabout? No, don't worry, I gamble on the internet at night. <font color="white">Props to Spamuell. </font>

[/ QUOTE ]

this = me

[OrangeHeat]

B.S Mechanical Engineering.

Building Multilayer RF Boards for wireless communications, spy satelites, and other unknown military uses that I am not cleared to know....Low Frequency through X band. We also do alot of DFD, DRFM, (friend or foe type things along with radar jammers etc..) for the air force.

We are a subcontractor for Boeing, Raytheon, NGST (old Northrup Grumman), Nokia, Motorola, Ericcson, etc...

The complexity of these has military boards has gotten out of hand. Uncle Sam has some very cool toys. I just wish I knew exactly what they were.

Orange

[StevieG]

[ QUOTE ]

I am pretty sure that someone studying the Banach space H^p of analytic functions doesnt get to bang strippers (as you tagline says) without a credit card.

[/ QUOTE ]

Feynman did it, why not jason_t?

[Jingleheimer]

This is probably a good move for you wrt your future employability also, although if you really love theory you can always TA.

[gumpzilla]

[ QUOTE ]
This is probably a good move for you wrt your future employability also, although if you really love theory you can always TA.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm well aware of the employability issue, at least within academia (and without, too, as far as physics is concerned. If I end up leaving physics or closely related fields, my bet is that a Ph.D is a Ph.D and that's that.) And the TAing situation is quite grim here; the incoming class and the one before were substantially larger than planned, and because they are guaranteed support for two years, there's a lot less TA action to go around than in other times.

[wmspringer]

Hey! :-)

I started out having an interest in both teaching and computers; while I was working on my BSCS I started tutoring math and liked it enough that, even though I got the MS as well, I have no intention of ever going to work in a strictly computing job. :-)

[BluffTHIS!]

All of you are very impressive with your research in your "real" jobs/study while those of us who play for a living are stuck with the same old research problem: trying to figure out more ways to suck out on other players cheaply while preventing them from doing the same back at us.

[Jingleheimer]

Are you the janitor I've seen around campus who writes Banach space proofs on the blackboards after hours?

If so, that's been done.

But the change of locale to LA, nitty Poker, drinking vodka off the tray, and the stripper scenes just might get this sequel off the ground. I like it. Something like Fear and Loathing in LV + High Roller + A Beautiful Mind.

Good luck.

[vulturesrow]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm finishing up analysis of a component of a new hybrid launch vehicle that Lockheed Martin is in the early stages of development of for DARPA, NASA, and the Air Force. Unfortunately, I didn't do anything terribly exciting for it - just some composites structural analysis. It is a pretty cool rocket, though.

My degrees are in Mechanical Engineering (BS) and Aerospace Engineering (MS).


[/ QUOTE ]


Patrick,

Have you worked on any military aircraft programs?

[StevieG]

[ QUOTE ]
This is probably a good move for you wrt your future employability also

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you saying this with respect to teaching positions?

I was just having this conversation a couple weeks ago with a theorist. I was surprised to hear him say that the smaller teaching colleges are reluctant to hire faculty candidates with a theoretical background, since they need people able to setup experiments for undergrad classes.

This made no sense to me. Someone who can work in Hilbert space can't set up a diffraction grating or air track?

Besides, you would think that a theorist could actually do research at a small college - get good computing, away you go.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

[ QUOTE ]
Patrick,

Have you worked on any military aircraft programs?

[/ QUOTE ]
I personally have only helped out real quick on one. My company does to a lot of modal testing on a lot of millitary aircraft, though. We did both Joint Strick Fighter candidates. It's possible that I've worked on a couple others, though, as there are two projects that I wasn't allowed to know anything about other than exactly my components. I'm pretty sure they were part of some weapon system, I just didn't know what.

[gumpzilla]

[ QUOTE ]

Besides, you would think that a theorist could actually do research at a small college - get good computing, away you go.

[/ QUOTE ]

Having gone to a small, teaching-focused college as an undergrad though, I don't think this is the issue. The question is, are you doing research that will be good for undergraduates to assist you with? There is some theory that undergraduates could conceivably make a meaningful contribution to, but I think more frequently not, because the background required to get off the ground running is formidable. I did a theoretical undergraduate thesis that involved largely numerical work, but knowing what I do now, 20 or 25 pages of it are spent doing something that is not particularly surprising to anybody who is remotely familiar with the field.

Furthermore, I think that it's a good thing if faculty at smaller colleges are largely experimentalists. When I first came to grad school, I'd estimate that 80-85% of the people thought they wanted to be theorists. This is pretty clearly out of touch with reality. My hypothesis is that many of the students who go to grad school (particularly good but not great grad schools) were good at classes, and don't necessarily have any conception of research. Consequently, their only familiarity with "experiment" is incredibly boring, frequently ill-designed lab classes, whereas "theory" is all the stuff they found interesting in their QM class. Putting undergraduates in touch with real experimental physics, then, seems like a worthy educational goal. This is something that wouldn't have occurred to me as an undergraduate, but seems fairly obvious now.

[Greg J]

Political science Ph.D. candidate studying public opinion. Specifically in my dissertation I am looking at anti-Americanism in Europe, and the internal cognitive mechanisms that lead to it. I am incorporating theories of cognitive consistency as well as those that conflate the traditional emotive-cognitive distinction.

Or maybe they just hate us cuz we're free /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Jingleheimer]

[ QUOTE ]

Are you saying this with respect to teaching positions?


[/ QUOTE ]

I had mostly industry in mind when I said this. If you do electronics or DAQ or any kind of significant apparatus construction, I think you can make a good case for a generic experimental R&amp;D job that you just couldn't if you were a theorist. That, coupled with the background in theory, also opens jobs as a quant or programmer etc., and you have a large variety of jobs outside physics. Very important to have those options open, since the strictly physics jobs are pretty limited in number IMO.

[ QUOTE ]

I was just having this conversation a couple weeks ago with a theorist. I was surprised to hear him say that the smaller teaching colleges are reluctant to hire faculty candidates with a theoretical background, since they need people able to setup experiments for undergrad classes.

This made no sense to me. Someone who can work in Hilbert space can't set up a diffraction grating or air track?


[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, but what happens when the sensor on your air track breaks?

I think when you are talking about small colleges, you have a supply and demand issue. In my experience they would like someone who can set up and run experimental classes, run a research program and advise students, write grants and get funding, and teach 3 theory classes too. I think they get away with asking for all of that because they can. And also why you can have turnover and people who retire-in-place.

[ QUOTE ]

Besides, you would think that a theorist could actually do research at a small college - get good computing, away you go.

[/ QUOTE ]

Something I do not know- are small colleges actually interested in someone doing top-shelf research? Could you get undergrad who is able to genuinely contribute to top-shelf theoretical research?

[StevieG]

[ QUOTE ]

Having gone to a small, teaching-focused college as an undergrad though, I don't think this is the issue.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good points, especially on exposing students to more interesting experimental work.

However, on the question of relevance of the work an undergrad can do in theory, I do wonder if a teaching college has the resources to support serious experimental work. Would they try to partner with larger research facilities close by?

[StevieG]

[ QUOTE ]

Something I do not know- are small colleges actually interested in someone doing top-shelf research? Could you get undergrad who is able to genuinely contribute to top-shelf theoretical research?

[/ QUOTE ]

More good points, and it supports gumpzilla's claims.

So, is anyone here doing research at a teaching college?

What kind of support (and more importantly, time) do you get from the school? Do you partner with other institutions?

[gumpzilla]

[ QUOTE ]

However, on the question of relevance of the work an undergrad can do in theory, I do wonder if a teaching college has the resources to support serious experimental work. Would they try to partner with larger research facilities close by?

[/ QUOTE ]

It depends on the kind of stuff you're doing. AMO was the specialty of choice among the experimentalists at my college, and I got the impression that there was a fair amount you could do on a relatively small scale. What you will most likely not find is anything that requires fancy fabrication processes. And it takes a very long time to do anything, because at most of these colleges there are no graduate students and undergrads aren't going to be able to put in nearly the same amount of lab time (both in hours/week and length of stay in the lab), so you're constantly retraining people. Thus, you'd expect to find cutting-edge labs at teaching colleges almost never, but the work being done is probably still of pretty decent quality, just slower.

[vulturesrow]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Patrick,

Have you worked on any military aircraft programs?

[/ QUOTE ]
I personally have only helped out real quick on one. My company does to a lot of modal testing on a lot of millitary aircraft, though. We did both Joint Strick Fighter candidates. It's possible that I've worked on a couple others, though, as there are two projects that I wasn't allowed to know anything about other than exactly my components. I'm pretty sure they were part of some weapon system, I just didn't know what.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the answer. Just curious. I am working on the G variant of the Super Hornet, albeit strictly from an operational standpoint, but I have a fair amount of interaction with the Boeing engineers. The acquisition and development process of miltary weapons platforms is pretty fascinating, granted screwed up at times, but I think Boeing is doing an awesome job of integrating our inputs as operators with the program requirements.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
It's possible that I've worked on a couple others, though, as there are two projects that I wasn't allowed to know anything about other than exactly my components. I'm pretty sure they were part of some weapon system, I just didn't know what.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are willing to build weapons components of unknown weapons systems to be sold to unknown peoples for use in unknown applications of military force?

eastbay

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It's possible that I've worked on a couple others, though, as there are two projects that I wasn't allowed to know anything about other than exactly my components. I'm pretty sure they were part of some weapon system, I just didn't know what.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are willing to build weapons components of unknown weapons systems to be sold to unknown peoples for use in unknown applications of military force?

eastbay

[/ QUOTE ]
I know the people and I know they are for use in the American military and/or our allies.