University of Wisconsin Stout | Wisconsin's Polytechnic University

History of my Research

I began my professional life at the University of Florida - Gainesville. I studied physics there and also got a minor in women's studies. You might say my professional life began a bit earlier, though.  

In high school I enjoyed science fairs. I liked the creative freedom. In my senior year, I won a 4 year summer internship with then-AT&T Semiconductor. That led me to a year of semiconductor engineering after earning my BS. The year in industry as a process engineer solidified my conviction to attend graduate school. All the interesting stuff was being done by engineers with graduate degrees.

While I was finishing graduate school at UW Madison, I got a position as a physics professor. I really enjoyed it. After 4 years, I felt it was time to move on. I wanted to focus more on my research and be closer to family. I joined UW Stout's Physics Department in August 2008. If you want more information on my research interests and the courses I teach and develop, read on.

My training is in physics and materials science. I like to think that materials means every possible thing known to man, except energy. Some of the cooler kinds are superconductors, polymers, biological films, tissues, semiconductors, and my personal favorite: materials on the nanoscale.  Why my favorite? Small materials do very weird things.

Take a guitar string. Imagine plucking it. It makes a sound in the audible range (20 Hz - 20 kHz). Now, shrink that down to the nano scale: that means shrink it so the diameter is about the size of a human hair, sliced on its axis 100 times!! This kind of string would make a sound that is definitely not audible, at 40 MHz!! You can't just expect small things to behave like their normally sized counterparts. That's what makes it fascinating.