Shortly after the beginning of my second day at Forthright Engineering, we were visited by an executive from a much larger engineering company whose headquarters is in Raleigh. They met with Steve Worm, the head of Forthright. Later in the day, I sat in on a call between Steve and another engineer at Forthright and people from other companies who were working on project with them. These two events highlight an aspect of engineering that, while not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of engineering, is still vitally important – communication. There were five individuals in the conference call, each with their own ideas, worries, and questions. During the call, they had to discuss new information, decide how to move further with the project, allay concerns, and discuss the best course of action. Though it may not always be easy, it’s essential for these engineers to be able to effectively communicate with others, especially when there are timelines they need to adhere to. The importance of communication is also seen amongst the engineers at Forthright through the teamwork they display: teamwork that they need to get projects done. There are only four engineers at the company, so I’ve been able to observe how they need to work as a team on projects to ensure both efficiency and quality for the customer.
Tag: Day 2
Day 2
My day consisted of mostly just watching the appropriation committee meeting. which lasted the entire day. During the second half of the day nothing much happened in this meeting, the different chairs of the different committees were explaining their part of the proposed budget. Lunch was fun, a local lobbying 
firm held a lunch social for the members of the house and senate. It wasn’t until after lunch where the meeting got more interesting. Now it was the time for Reps. to propose amendments to the budget. This was where most of the debate and questioning came into play.
Day 2
Similarly to Day 1, Day 2 at FHI 360 was jam-packed with meetings and projects. Our day started off with a meeting with Dr. Kavita Nanda, the director of medical research, who enlightened us on contraceptive device specifics. Following this, Hope, Caroline, Maddie and I took advantage of an hour of free time by beginning our first group project. We were tasked to answer the following question: how might we use social media based platforms to support feedback from adolescents on contraceptive methods? In essence, we needed to come up with a survey that is not only fun, but also accessible and create a powerpoint depicting our pitch. Upon brainstorming, we decided to create a knock of version of Tinder; instead of profiles of people, there are profiles of side effects, and you swipe up or down to chose which side effects are less (or more) bothersome. To complement this app, decided to institute a Tinder Online that is accessible by desktops, allowing a wider audience to be able to participate. I’d say we made a big dent in this project, and the hour flew by quickly.
After Maddie and Hope left to meeting with Stevie Daniels to learn more about collecting photos, my day got interesting. Caroline and I began another project regarding possible private donors, and I was tasked with typing approximately 170 names into an excel spreadsheet so we could begin categorizing and grouping them. I had already written the first 50 or so names, and was able to finish the rest 25 or so minutes later. I quickly saved (or so I thought) the document before exiting it, allowing Caroline to simultaneously edit on the online version. Once I opened the document on excel online, I was horrified to realize all of my work had deleted! 🙁 I Only the 50 names previously saved remained…I took a few deep breathes and then proceeded to retype the rest of the names, being extra careful to ensure my work saved. Just like the prior project, Caroline and I made a substantial dent into this project; however, we still have ways to go. When Maddie and Hope’s meeting ended, we enjoyed a nice lunch at Mellow Mushroom before attending two more meetings, yielding two more projects: one of them being professional stalking.
In short, I had another fantastic day at FHI 360, and I am looking forward to returning tomorrow!!!
Day 2: Chip on the Shoulder
Today, I went to Wake Orthopedics in Raleigh, NC by Brier Creek to shadow Dr. Mark Wood and Dr. Alan Summers. I shadowed Dr. Summers in the morning where we actually had a patient that was exaggerating the seriousness of his injury. We took extensive x-rays to figure out what the problem was including x-rays of his pelvis, back, and knees. He claimed that he had arthritis in his knees; however, arthritis can be detected on an x-ray and there were no signs of bone spurs or small space between the femur and tibia. When Dr. Summers did a pressure test to test the strength of the ligaments in the patient’s knees, it was found that he was “faking” or exaggerating the weakness of his ligaments by purposely trying to make them weaker. This is known as “cog wheeling”. It’s different than legitimate weakness because the limb will slowly and smoothly move backwards. In “cog wheeling”, your brain and what you are trying to make your body do are conflicting. Thus, the limb will twitch back and forth as opposed to moving back smoothly.
When working with Dr. Wood in the afternoon, he’s mainly a knee and shoulder specialist, so we had lots of arthritis cases that came in and injuries to the clavicle. A particularly interesting case was one that involved an ATV accident where the patient had nearly complete range of motion of his shoulder, but had a “bump” sticking out of his shoulder. We performed the x-rays and come to find out that the patient completely tore through their
tendon that attaches their clavicle to the muscles of the upper arm extremities. The patient suffered a grade 5 tear (out of 6 grades) of this tendon and yet they only came with complaints of slight discomfort. Dr. Wood informed me that these injuries up until 2 years ago would always be treated with surgery; the sooner the better. However, thanks to innovations and extensive research and records, this injury can now be treated with extensive physical therapy as long as the patient is comfortable with the bone sticking out. If discomfort persist longer than the patient can withstand, surgery can be performed. The recovery time for this injury with and without surgery stands to be the same. Evidently, it’s up to the patient on whether they want to pursue surgery or not. This just comes to show how techniques and innovations in medicine are constantly evolving to make treatments more efficient.
Day 2 – Day 2: “If you’re curious about something, you’re probably a nerd”
It was another busy day at RTI!
I spent the entire first half of the day sitting in on an important conference about the federally funded project to prevent HIV for South African women. Some background: a small implant is being developed to be inserted somewhere discreet (perhaps upper arm or thigh) and consistently release the right amount HIV preventing drugs over a period of about 3 months. As Dr. Rothrock described, this meeting was essentially the “annual check-in” to report on the progress made on the project. This meeting was especially important, as they plan to move into a human trial in 2018. We dialed into the conference, which was being held in Washington DC, and watched the presentations as researchers from RTI and their many partners presented to various important people, such as representatives from the USAID.
For being dialed in to such a high-stakes meeting, I was surprised by how relaxed the environment was in our conference room. Of course, our mentors from RTI were listening, but they joked about difficulties they encountered and told us fun anecdotes about their colleagues. I remember when something called HiP (HIV implants for prevention) was being presented about, and they joked “we have HiP now, get ready for HoP!”
In fact, how I would describe the whole day is “surprisingly chill.” We spent the second half of the day observing in lab, as important data was being taken for the HIV prevention project. It was obviously nothing to be taken lightly – all equipment was sterilized extensively before use and all work was done inside a sterile hood – yet the scientists we observed were extremely friendly and willing to answer questions. I learned so much from talking to them: from the different types of capsules and the differences in how they release the drug, to the proper procedure to sterilize equipment, to the difference between a chemist and a chemical engineer, to why not to take power walking as a PE class in college.
Everyone at RTI has been so friendly, even offering to connect us to people in the field we might want to work in. One of the scientists I talked to, Phil, gave me career advice, saying “if you’re curious about something, you’re probably a nerd… if you like problem solving, I’d recommend science as a career.” He also told us that we would get a chance to get our hands dirty and do some real lab work soon!
New vocab for today: excipients are essentially the “non-active” ingredients in any drug, that are put there to serve a purpose other than treating the disease. The purpose could be to take up space (because the required dosage of the actual drug can be extremely small), to make the drug more visually appealing, to provide an easier method of delivery, etc.
Day 2: Adventures with E. Coli
Hustling to make it to the lab on time, I ran into Dr. Masoudi. We had a short discussion about our protocol today and we soon proceeded to get some E. Coli cells that were injected with a specific compound known as “IPTG.” This special protein turns on the promoter for a gene in E. Coli’s DNA that produces a nanobody called Nb6B9. Needless to say, I was utterly oblivious this morning. It took me a while to better understand what exactly was happening, but when I got a hang of things we started rolling. We began by vigorously shaking the bottles of E. Coli using some machines that bounce up and down upon contact with the bottle; my hand was numb after using this “vortex machine.” After the E. Coli had been disrupted enough and mixed with some buffer solution (basically a stabilizing solution), we placed the bottles in a freezer room to prevent any unwanted reactions. But Dr. Masoudi and I soon came across a pretty severe problem. The E. Coli bottles were filled with foam that made it nearly impossible for us to extract the cell solution. Usually, this wouldn’t be such a major issue, but the next step in our procedure was to use a gargantuan centrifuge (giant spinning device). As the bottles rotate at 14,000 revolutions per minute, the pressure against the sides of the bottles greatly increase and any space not occupied by dense solution (any of the area with foam) increase the risk of collapsing the bottle, ruining the centrifuge, and costing the lab tens of thousands of dollars. Did some famous person say something along the lines of “successful people take risks”? Because that’s exactly what we did. We balanced a couple half-filled bottles and popped them into the centrifuge, hoping to the gods of science that we wouldn’t hear an explosion. The centrifuge continued spinning for a good ten minutes without any problems, so we used the same procedure for the rest of the bottles. The well-mixed E. Coli solutions were poured altogether in the same flask, but another problem arose: the liquid was viscous. Because we needed to filter the E. Coli mixtures through a paper with fine, minuscule openings, a viscous liquid that binds together powerfully wouldn’t be able to meander through the holes. Only after adding a special enzyme, benzonase, did we have a watery liquid that we could us in our setup.
In the image above, the blue part of the column is nickel resin that binds to our oh-so precious protein, Nb6B9. The filtered liquid was dripping at a rate of about 2mL per minute, meaning the entire process took up to four hours.
The greatest lesson I’ve learned from my first two days in the Lefkowitz lab is that understanding is a requirement for appreciation. I thought I had a good handle on chemistry before I got into the lab, but I’ve learned that there is so much more to know, so much more to analyze, and so many more opportunities to take risks.
Day 2
Today was a busy one. I started off the day by continuing the reset of the MicroPEMs that were to be sent out for more projects. This just consisted of measuring the voltage and currency of the devices and recording the numbers down in a spreadsheet. Then, I toured the chemistry labs and met a chemist who synthesizes molecules and compounds to make opioids, specifically opioids that prevent relapses for drug addicts. The equipment and machines in these labs were crazy! He walked me through his lab and described the whole process of how he synthesizes the molecules, and the coolest part to me was the giant magnet (it was probably 5 feet tall and 3 feet wide, I couldn’t take a picture as it could have damaged my phone) used to test the molecules he synthesizes. In that same building, there was a wall of information about the two scientists at RTI who discovered two treatments for chemotherapy (one of which is still at RTI doing research), and I got to see the National Historic Chemistry Landmark celebrating these scientists. Very inspiring people!
After lunch, I got back to work on resetting the MicroPEMs, except this time I was clearing data and measuring the air flow and calibrating the nephelometer and more. I already have gained a whole new perspective on research and the amount of work required to make these labs work; the maintenance people, the tech support, the mail and packaging workers, all play integral roles in the success of these labs. Every building and lab I have been to at RTI have all these people milling around, working constantly for the lab. I felt a real appreciation while working in the lab for the “village” that makes research work.
I then met with Dr. Jonathan Thornburg, who is an aerosol engineer currently working on e-cig projects. I got to ask him a lot of questions about his research and what led to his career/the path he took, which was super interesting and very informative for my own future. I returned back to resetting the MicroPEMs, and somehow it was already four and the day was over. Super stoked to be returning tomorrow! 
resetting the MicroPEMs in the lab
Day 2 – Shadowing Jon Mulder and All Hands on Deck Meeting!
Today I shadowed Jon Mulder, a content developer who plays a large role in Lenovo’s equivalent of the App Store, which is called Lenovo App Explorer. I was also able to meet some of his associates, Christianna, Naomi, Ryan, and David, who also play critical roles in either the App Explorer or the development lab. I was also able to speak with Christianna and Naomi a bit about the work that they do on a global scale, communicating with Brazil, Japan, and China, just to name a few. They also told me about some of the scholarships that Lenovo offers, and they also told me about a great workshop that I will try to attend later in the week, which is a workshop about the language C++. After talking with them, Jon and I drove over to the other Lenovo campus where I got to meet Igor Bergman, the VP Head of Software & Cloud Business at Lenovo, and I was able to shake his hand and tell him a little about myself and the Work Experience Program, before he gave a huge presentation to ~100 people while we all ate pizza (second day in a row for pizza, I’m not complaining). Great day, and I even got a free cup promoting the release of their latest product, Airclass (which released yesterday)!!!
Day 2 at Raleigh Orthopaedics in Cary
Today, I noticed that a lot of the injuries people had were similar to the ones yesterday. The most common occurrences were bad knees, hamstrings, and hips, all of which I have personally experienced.
I saw more dry needling which was still as fascinating as yesterday. The patient today who received it, however, reacted quite differently. Instead of being static and calm, pain was clearly evident when the needle entered his legs. I talked to the man, and he said he ran 100 mile races, so I definitely think that had something to do with his reaction and tightness of muscles. He was incredibly friendly, and even while he was in agonizing pain, he was giving me a list of movies I must watch. I thought that him talking to me through discomfort demonstrated the positive, caring community in physical therapy. It was fun talking to new people and getting to know them while staying productive in the work.
Another unique interaction I had was with a man who just opened an American Ninja Warrior training facility in Morrisville. He had his grand opening on Memorial Day and he showed me pictures of famous figures such as Jessie Graff and Jamie Rhan who attended his big event. Getting to meet such a wide range of people through physical therapy is something I expected, but not to the extent which I experienced today.
Dry needling pictures of the man who runs 100 miles races
Day 2
Today was another day of meetings. We started out with a morning meeting with the whole team associated with Wrangler. After everyone had debriefed and was on the same page we moved to another smaller conference room where a guy named Clay, another woman named Colleen, and two other women that I had never met had a meeting about their media trip they were planning in order to get publicity for Wranglers new outdoor line. This was one of the coolest and most interesting meetings I had been to so far because I got to watch first hand as the team formulated a pitch for a piece of “viral content” that involved some celebrities and athletes that had already worked with the brand. I’m not sure if I can go into the details of the plan or not because it hasn’t been officially put out yet, but it was really cool to see them just throw ideas around and then get really excited once they thought they had something that was going to be a hit.
After lunch was also really cool because we got to have a one on one meeting with one of the head art directors at FWV named Rich. He talked to us about how he got into Graphic design, what a typical day was like for him at the office, and then he showed us a logo design for a charity bike race that he and his team had just finished working on. Overall Rich was just a really interesting guy to talk to and his work was very impressive.
