Tag Archive : Michael Crocker

/ Michael Crocker

Eastes and Brothers Explore Materials Research, Grad School Options at UTSI

August 30, 2011 | Academics, News, People, Research, Students, Summer | No Comments

Lydia Brothers records notes from a heat experiment at UTSI.
Lydia Brothers records notes from a heat experiment at UTSI.

by Michael Crocker, Academy Avatar

Two students at Western Kentucky University’s Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science in Kentucky spent time over the summer exploring materials science with advanced medical applications.

Andrea Eastes (’12) and Lydia Brothers (’12) served as student researchers at the University of Tennessee Space Institute doing  focusing their explorations on determining the applications of ZBLAN glass in medical fields.

The University of Tennessee Space Institute is a graduate study and research institution with a campus located “practically in the woods” Eastes said. “It was really nice to be around nature all the time.”

Eastes was also glad she “was able to get a little perspective on what grad school is like.” Academy students were part of a seven-week program at the  UTSI where they worked alongside graduate and undergraduate students to characterize a particular type of glass ceramic, explained Brothers.

ZBLAN glass, or glass made of Zirconium, Barium, Lanthanum, Aluminum, and Sodium, was the topic of research “because it has capabilities of a storage phosphor which we were working with so that it could be used as an alternative to typical x-ray films,”  added Eastes.  She went on to explain that this allows the x-ray result to be stored digitally and removes the inconvenience of one-time-use x-ray films.

The research team, which included Eastes, Brothers, and several undergraduate and graduate students, worked with two types of the glass.  According to Brothers, they worked to “evaluate how much light would be emitted from each particular sample at a number of different temperatures and percentages of a variable element.”

As well as the research that was done on the trip, Eastes also “really enjoyed getting to meet all the amazing people” on the campus, and she got to do everything from “singing like crazy people on karaoke night” to “canoeing and kayaking.”

Brothers enjoyed the experience as well and said she even got to “sit in on someone’s doctoral defense.”

Eastes says she learned the most about “the physics that is involved with something as simple as glass.” She also found  that being able to work with such a variety of machines and being able to decipher the readings  a great learning experience.

Both Brothers and Eastes  enjoyed learning more about what graduate work will be like and getting to meet and become friends with other people interested in their fields.

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By Corey Alderdice

Academy Students Dialogue with Peers, Industry Leaders at National Youth Policy Summit

August 29, 2011 | Academics, News, People, Research, Students, Summer | No Comments

Academy senior Rachel Metcalfe dialogues with fellow YPS conference participants.
Academy senior Rachel Metcalfe dialogues with fellow YPS conference participants.

by Michael Crocker, Academy Avatar

This summer three Gatton Academy students were given the opportunity to attend and participate in the 2011 National Youth Policy Summit.

Seniors Rachel Metcalfe, Samantha McKean, and Melanie Hurst spent one week in Keystone, Colorado where McKean says they “worked together to create a blueprint for a solution to the current energy crisis.”

Students were selected based on their answer to an essay.   Hurst says that before the program began a great amount of effort was put into research and idea development. “We had to research an energy topic as well as a stakeholder to represent at the conference,”  she said.  At the summit, Hurst noted she worked with 35 students and 3-4 main instructors in the topic area. She also worked with the representatives of the stakeholder companies.

McKean says that at the conference around 40 students from a variety of National Consortium of Specialized Secondary Schools of Math, Science, and Technology schools each were assigned a different company that had to do with energy.  The group eventually completed an 80 page policy recommendation booklet.

The  group loved the Colorado setting of the conference.  The mountain landscape in which students studied was equally enjoyable to their research. “Colorado [was] beautiful,” according to Hurst. “We were at 10,000-12,000 feet the entire trip and was right up there with mountains.”  Although she said it was cold, she enjoyed being able to “say we threw snowballs in June.”

Metcalfe said her favorite part of the trip was  a late evening hike where they got to see the sunset over the mountains to the west.  McKean added that  “the mountains were a really nice reminder of what we were working toward, which is a cleaner, healthier environment.”

Because all three Aacademy students were assigned a different company and had different experiences they all took away different lessons.

Hurst found that  the real-world applications of the program expanded just beyond content knowledge.  “The most important thing I learned was how to compromise and negotiate so that everyone wins a little in the end,” she said.

McKean talked more about how much she learned about energy and how it relates to the economy.  “I learned a lot about how different parts of the economy would suffer if we completely just dropped oil, which is a major reason why we haven’t yet.”

Metcalfe found having to take a side in the debate to be very enlightening.  “I gained so much more knowledge about all the aspects of our national energy dependency, especially from interesting perspectives.”

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By Corey Alderdice