Today was definitely less hands-on than my last two days, as I did not work in the lab at all. Instead, I met with Dr. Depro, an environmental economist (also a senior economist at RTI) to discuss his job and career in economics. After trekking across the RTI campus (I don’t think it was actually that far it was just so hot), we arrived at the Economics building and took the elevator up tothe fourth floor, which had a great view of the RTI campus. Dr. Depro explained his career journey and his projects at RTI, which mainly focus on how environmental conditions affect the housing market and the specific groups of people affected by these changes. Dr. Depro was super nice and gave me extremely helpful advice that I will be sure to remember throughout college and my future career.
In the afternoon, I got to witness the SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) in action with Kiera and Madisen. Two material scientists took us over to examine the samples of nanofibers they created. Because the samples were not metal, they were coated in gold to become electrically conductive (necessary for SEM to work since it uses electrons). The samples were then carefully placed in the SEM, and the researchers were able to scan through the images of the samples to find what they were looking for. Excited for tomorrow!
