Throughout high school, much of my time outside of class was spent playing soccer. One evening, on the way to a game, I decided to fuel up with a granola bar. As I bit down on a particularly hard almond, I heard a fatal crack. Almost to the game, in the back of the school bus, I was mortified. I knew instantly, from experience, that my fake tooth had just broken off. Why did this keep happening?
Curious as to the root of this problem, I thought back to materials science and engineering. My dad, a 1992 University of Washington MSE graduate, would often tell me stories of his research and puzzle me with riddles as I gained more knowledge and interest in the atomic world of physics and chemistry. Such questions as “what can we do to ceramics to make them harder or more brittle?” were commonplace at the dinner table.
Reluctant to follow too closely in my dad’s footsteps, yet intrigued by his questions and still annoyed by my breaking teeth, I decided to further investigate MSE through the summer Materials Camp led by David Starkebaum. Through this week of exploration, I began to realize how broad and impactful the discipline is. I also began to see how the areas I thrived in, such as analyzing crystal structures in AP chemistry labs or the mathematics of thermodynamics in physics classes could be applicable to real research and innovation.
For the first time, I could see an academic path for myself with this intriguing and tangible branch of engineering that had the potential to improve my life through bettering the materials of pontics. Through this vision, I was excited to be invited back the next summer as an instructor and lab facilitator for the camp. Although helping my students to learn about glass bending and tin melting (and making sure no one was burned) was fun, the most rewarding part of volunteering as an instructor was talking to professors and graduate students about their work. Through this, I was exposed to the specifics of my dental questions through explanations from Dr. Sarikaya’s lens of biomimetics. For example, porcelain is hard and looks like a real tooth, but as a ceramic it is not very flexible. To improve pontics, we can look at the molecular structure of real teeth, and try to mimic nature’s excellence in balancing these qualities we look for in a tooth.
As I move forward in my University of Washington experience, I am excited to continue to work with the talented and diverse minds within Materials Science and Engineering. While acknowledging the support and legacy of my dad, I want to forge my own path and questions while drawing from the collaboration, help, and inspiration of my peers and professors in MSE. In pursuing this major, I hope to use my strengths in math, chemistry, and physics to do good for the world through work and research in biomimetics. As a future professional aspiration, I hope to also acknowledge my love of learning, questioning, and leading through graduate school and someday academia or entrepreneurship. I am beyond excited to begin this path, and am determined to better the world, one uncracked tooth at a time.
Curious as to the root of this problem, I thought back to materials science and engineering. My dad, a 1992 University of Washington MSE graduate, would often tell me stories of his research and puzzle me with riddles as I gained more knowledge and interest in the atomic world of physics and chemistry. Such questions as “what can we do to ceramics to make them harder or more brittle?” were commonplace at the dinner table.
Reluctant to follow too closely in my dad’s footsteps, yet intrigued by his questions and still annoyed by my breaking teeth, I decided to further investigate MSE through the summer Materials Camp led by David Starkebaum. Through this week of exploration, I began to realize how broad and impactful the discipline is. I also began to see how the areas I thrived in, such as analyzing crystal structures in AP chemistry labs or the mathematics of thermodynamics in physics classes could be applicable to real research and innovation.
For the first time, I could see an academic path for myself with this intriguing and tangible branch of engineering that had the potential to improve my life through bettering the materials of pontics. Through this vision, I was excited to be invited back the next summer as an instructor and lab facilitator for the camp. Although helping my students to learn about glass bending and tin melting (and making sure no one was burned) was fun, the most rewarding part of volunteering as an instructor was talking to professors and graduate students about their work. Through this, I was exposed to the specifics of my dental questions through explanations from Dr. Sarikaya’s lens of biomimetics. For example, porcelain is hard and looks like a real tooth, but as a ceramic it is not very flexible. To improve pontics, we can look at the molecular structure of real teeth, and try to mimic nature’s excellence in balancing these qualities we look for in a tooth.
As I move forward in my University of Washington experience, I am excited to continue to work with the talented and diverse minds within Materials Science and Engineering. While acknowledging the support and legacy of my dad, I want to forge my own path and questions while drawing from the collaboration, help, and inspiration of my peers and professors in MSE. In pursuing this major, I hope to use my strengths in math, chemistry, and physics to do good for the world through work and research in biomimetics. As a future professional aspiration, I hope to also acknowledge my love of learning, questioning, and leading through graduate school and someday academia or entrepreneurship. I am beyond excited to begin this path, and am determined to better the world, one uncracked tooth at a time.