Light Diffraction Data from a sample – for tips on what this means please browse the links below…
FAQ – ELS Overview An_Introduction_to_DLS in 30 Minutes
There is never a shortage of things to do at RTI! Though the day started a little slow with some light reading (by the way the Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons by Sam Kean is a great read), once it started moving it never quite stopped. We continued some lab work from yesterday. First we ran samples (made from surfacant, chromium, and polymer) through a sonicator. A sonicator uses audio submerged in water to break up aggravated particles. Then we used a centrifuge to separate particles to the bottom. Next, came the fun part of syringing the solution into a curved cell to be put into a dynamic light scattering machine (or DLS). Surfacants are bipolar substances, which kinda look like tadpoles under a microscope, with a hydrophobic and hydrophilic end. Sometimes surfactants aggregate and form micelles, which are simply aggravated surfacant molecules in a colloid (a colloid is a mixture with insoluble substance microscopically dispersed). These micelles are spherical in shape with the hydrophobic tails facing towards the center. This brings us to the CMC (critical micelle concentration), which is the concentration of surfacants above which micelles form and all additional sufucants form micelles. THis is relevant information because when running the samples through the DLS the graphs will be erratic if the pH induced the formation of micelles and the size vary greatly. The purpose of an DLS machine is to track nano particles and the relative size of particles. One we reached lunch I got to sit in on the YP lunch presentations (that’s young professionals – man these people like their acronyms!). The presentations serve to bring people at RTI together to practice presenting their findings to a group in part to share their findings with other departments and to also give those with less established careers to have the experience of presenting. I heard a lecture on mapping the innovation process and the iterative cycles of learning and focus, fluorescent carbon nano particles found in coffee and fruit juices (presented by the one and only Phil Durham), and idea generation in relation to energy technology development. We then spent the remainder of the day continuing the study and learning about polymers. Yay!
Day three at Centerline has definitely been one of my favorites so far. The environment here continues to be both welcoming and fascinating, and I’ve woken up every morning looking forward to the day ahead of me. I’m starting to become less and less dependent on my NAV to get here which is a plus! Today I’ve spent the day with two really wonderful women: mackenzie ( hopefully I’m spelling her name correctly) and Valentina, who work in the writing and accounts departments respectively. My time speaking with mackenzie was really wonderful as I spoke to her about her education and the course of her career. We discussed for a while the difficulty of being a writer in a corporate environment and the struggle to implement her own creativity and voice into sometimes quite formal pieces of work. She noted that her job was to ” find the human” in the product, and to ensure a way to make the pieces connectable and resinate with an audience. Over the course of our conversation she also opened up to me about her relationship with her writing and the occasional cut and dry vibe of the industry. She said how quite often it takes quite a thick skin to be a writer in an agency, as scripts can get rejected and sent back incredibly easily. For a writer, who pours everything she has into what she creates, it takes a strong ability to focus on the final product and satisfaction of the client rather than her own feelings. After lunch and more chatting I met up with Valentina from the Accounts team who’s job seems to be another challenging one. Valentina ultimately works as a project manager, so her job demands extreme organizational and customer service abilities. She essentially works as the overseer of the marketed product from the moment she comes in contact with the client to the final sending off of the product. Through her complex schedules that she showed me in 2nd picture above, she organizes every single step of the process. While organizing and facilitating the production process along with the writing, film and animation departments, she simultaneously communicates with the client. Her goal is ultimately to figure out exactly what the client needs, ( the message they want to convey, their target audience etc.) communicate that idea to the creative teams, and ensure that the final product is perfect before its sent off to to the client. Long story short- if I ever hear that someone works in accounts again I will instantly have a massive amount of respect for them.
CA Work Experience Program 2016 