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- Year Of Graduation: 2020
- College/University: Marquette University
- Major: Mechanical Engineering with minors in Psychology, Mathematics, and Astrophysics
What do you do for a living? Can you share what a typical day at work looks like?
I’m a graduate student researcher! Instead of joining industry, I decided to further my learning with graduate school and get involved in pursuing new knowledge in the sciences. Interestingly enough, the average day of a graduate student can sometimes be very consistent or very chaotic. We only take 1-2 classes per semester and have a handful of meetings, meaning only about 10 hours of your week are locked down; the rest of your time is whatever you wish for it to be. So the pro is that I have a lot of free time, the con is that all that free time is firmly dedicated to my research. I can get into my lab around 10 am and then leave whenever I want. Which sounds great, but whenever there are upcoming deadlines, this means I don’t leave the lab until 10 pm some days.
What is your research in, and what are you currently working on (if it can be disclosed)?
During my senior year, I was applying to grad schools and got into Purdue. I initially came here just for my Master’s because I didn’t have any research background. I wanted to see if research was for me. And after I started research, I realized I really enjoyed it and continued here for my PhD. My research is specifically in soft robotics! So, think Baymax from Big Hero 6. That guy is a soft robot. My robots aren’t as cool because that one’s more futuristic, but that’s kind of the goal of making a robot where compliancy of some kind is a major aspect of their form or function. They’re usually geared toward medical fields, much like Baymax, because they’re much friendlier and safer to interact with, while still having enough strength to fulfill their functions.
My current project is looking at how we can take advantage of a specific kind of soft robot that can grow, called vine robots, and our understanding of its interactions with its environment to actually map the space it’s moving through. If we can understand what collisions do to the robot’s shape, and have sensors to detect it, we can retrace the paths taken and, thus, what the environment looked like! Hopefully, this work ends with a journal paper, which is a pretty big deal because I’ve been working on this for over a year, deriving tons of equations and coding thousands of lines of code just to get everything to work.
What kind of applications do you see your work in?
Ideally, my work provides a baseline for projects that can use the soft growing robots as gentle tendrils to feel out an environment without moving things. I can definitely see my research being used for mapping the debris of a collapsed building, or for exploring a delicate archeological or ecological site.
Why did you choose your undergraduate major? Do you feel your time spent in college was valuable? Why or why not?
I always knew that I liked math and science in general, even when I was a child. When they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I just pictured myself in a lab coat pouring chemicals. That was my idea of what I wanted to do, just science. Then, I realized I was really good at math and physics, so I started leaning more towards engineering. When I finally started applying to undergrad schools, I applied for mechanical engineering because I wasn’t sure which engineering field I wanted to pursue. Fortunately, that was the one that I meshed the best with and stuck with it throughout my undergrad.
In terms of choosing my field after undergrad, I initially was looking at robotics in general, specifically swarms, but was recommended to talk to my current advisor by another robotics group that couldn’t take me in due to a lack of space. After some talking and investigating, soft robotics vibed with some of the things I like to do and learn about, so here I am now, making soft robots!
As for my time in undergrad, I was always a really big nerd and loved learning, so I sank all my time into my classes, and that effort has been greatly rewarded during my graduate school career, since I sometimes have to go back to the basics of some fields in order to better work on my research. That being said, for a day-to-day job that typical engineers have, the specific material of the classes isn’t always useful. What has been the most important aspect of the classes I took is the way of thinking. The ability to break down problems into their necessary parts and organize how to tackle them is the most important skill that is developed in the typical engineering curriculum.
At what point did you decide you wanted to pursue graduate-level degrees?
That’s actually a great story! Halfway through my undergrad, I did a co-op at an aerospace company. I did three semesters there. First, I was part of a quality clinic, where I realized I didn’t really like sitting behind a desk for 9-11 hours a day. It wasn’t very fun, and it wasn’t very engaging, and it was a lot of putting out fires and chasing people down. That one didn’t really mix well with me. But then I got to be part of the space systems department, which was a completely different experience. I got to work on the SLS and Orion capsule project, which are so much more interesting than slightly scratched manufacturing parts. It was incredibly engaging, and it made me realize there was something different about what I was doing here versus what I was doing at the quality clinic.
However, I was still at a desk most of the time, and I wasn’t entirely satisfied with that, even though the stuff that I was working on was still really cool. I was a little bit happier, but not ecstatic. Eventually, I just decided to create a project, and I asked my boss, “Hey, I want to do something to improve this. Can I work on it?” Thankfully, they gave the go-ahead, and I quickly realized that project work and inventing something to make something better were what really drove me. My boss also saw that and was like, “Okay, can you help me fix this?” or “Can you go tackle this problem?” I was very good at figuring out weird solutions to odd problems that these different projects had.
I say all of this because what finally pushed me into thinking about grad school was when there was a major breakdown on the manufacturing floor. They had to call in a super team of important, intelligent engineers from across the country and some from across the world to try and fix this problem. They called all the smartest people they knew from their company. They rented out an entire conference room for a week, and they were just there with whiteboards and sticky notes and pens and papers, figuring out how to fix this problem. My boss invited me to those meetings, maybe because she saw something in me or just thought it would be something interesting for me. It was fascinating seeing all these highly educated people with these interesting and diverse backgrounds in education come together to solve a very complex problem. That kind of inspired me to pursue higher education. Academia fulfills that role now, where I get to choose a project that’s interesting to me, put my curiosity and my weirdness into it, and then show that I improved the world in some small way.
When did you have any idea of what you’d like to do as a career? What options would be available for someone in your field?
I knew that I didn’t want to sit behind a desk all day and mindlessly look at corporate tasks and budgets, and stuff. I thought that was a kind of a waste of time for me. I knew that I wanted to do some sort of project work, and I realized that grad school would probably be project-based and research-heavy.
After this, I might go to a national lab, or I might work at some sort of research facility, or maybe continue academia and be a professor, because I also enjoy teaching. With a PhD in engineering, you can really go a lot of different ways. Some go into industry, some go into research, and then another good portion continues in academia. It’s usually split between those three.
Could you share a breakdown of how PhD programs tend to work? What does pursuing a degree look like at this level?
It depends on the program, and it depends on what lab you’re in and what kind of work you do. Generally, you’re going to be taking some classes that are more difficult than undergrad, and you’ll be splitting your time between classes, research, and sometimes you might have to TA. You will most likely be given a TA position or an RA position. TA is a teaching assistant, and RA is a research assistant. TA’ing could be anywhere from being the actual teacher, just grading, or overseeing a lab section, or just hosting office hours. It highly depends on what department you’re in and what kind of money they are able to give you. For example, last year, I was a TA for a class where, instead of office hours or grading, I was in charge of redeveloping some of the curriculum into a different programming language.
The way you do research also depends on the field. For example, right now I’m doing computational work for my paper, but the person sitting next to me is doing prototyping work where they’re assembling tiny mechanisms at their desk and then printing other parts, and then measuring interactions of input and output to quantify their behavior and limits. Then another person is doing human subject tests right next to me. So it really depends on what you’re pursuing and what you’re doing, but it’ll usually boil down to a split between research and studies.
Also, for most STEM programs, you will most likely be funded in some capacity. I’d also recommend looking for fellowships, which are basically like undergrad scholarships. You essentially get paid to work on your own projects.
How important is it to have a purpose-driven life? Why or why not? Do you think you’re on a path to do that? If not, what needs to change?
That’s kind of the whole point for me. I’ve always wanted to do science and tackle weird problems and be challenged by thoughts and figure them out myself. When that’s done, I’m like, “That was so satisfying. I figured this out.” So, for me, grad school is very purpose-driven. I really love what I do, and I would not be putting this much time and effort into being here this long if I didn’t absolutely love it.
What interests/hobbies bring you the most happiness?
I’m a big fan of card games and board games. Purdue is really close to Indianapolis, which hosts Gen Con every year, and Gen Con is the biggest board gaming convention in the world. 77,000 people in four days in this massive convention center downtown. Besides that, I also really enjoy rock climbing, which is somewhat ironic because I’m scared of heights. I love it because it’s kind of similar to grad school; every route is a different challenge and a different problem. The people next to me can solve the problem in a completely different way than I do because I climb slightly differently or weigh differently than they do, or they have different flexibility than me. It’s always really fun to look at a wall and see what you can do, then take a step back and see someone else do it completely differently.
What do you want to spend more time working on? What is stopping you?
Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about spending more time on myself. I’ve been working so much on this paper. Waking up, going to campus, working until 1:00 a.m., and then coming back home to finally sleep and do it all over again. I have barely been able to cook for myself, so I’ve been eating out a lot. Sometimes, the drive to do something really cool in grad school can overshadow self-care. A lot of grad students have a vitamin D deficiency for a reason. So, after this paper, I’m definitely going to be taking care of myself more and taking a little bit of a breather. That all being said, I still really enjoy the work I’m doing and find it really fulfilling at the end of the day to look back and see all the progress I’ve achieved.
What’s your biggest struggle right now? What led to it? How are you moving forward?
I shelled out a bit of time to go grocery shopping this morning, and I’m planning on meal prepping tonight so I don’t have to worry about eating out. My biggest struggle recently is just not having time because I’ve been hyperfocusing a lot on this project. I’m so focused that I forget to eat, and then I’m there for 12 hours without food, and then it’s too late to make something.
If we traveled three years into the future of your life, what do you want to achieve? What would you hope has changed?
So, within a year or a year and a half, I should be finishing my PhD. Hopefully, anyone reading this interview will look me up and it’ll say PhD after my name. Past that, I’m not sure because unfortunately the current political climate is pretty scary for people like me, as a queer and Hispanic person, and then also just a scientist in general. The current political atmosphere is kind of aggressive against these things existing. So, I’m generally not sure. But ideally, if these things aren’t affected, I’d love to move to a nice big city and either become a professor and do part-time research and part-time teaching, or work at a national lab where I get to do cool science projects that benefit the world more directly than academia can.
What’s the biggest lesson or piece of advice you wish you had known earlier?
When considering a lab to do your grad school in, I highly recommend getting in contact with the grad students who work there. Interview a few of them about what it’s like to work for the PI (Principal Investigator), the school, the lab, etc. Since they have no leg in the game, they will be completely honest with you. They don’t get paid to recruit people, and they won’t get in trouble for telling you the truth, so whether it’s good or bad, they’ll let you know, and that can potentially make or break any offers you get. And if the PI doesn’t want you to interview their students, run. That’s a red flag.
The other piece of advice is for people currently in grad school: if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re in the right place, because that’s what research is about. That’s what grad school is about. If you already knew what you were doing, you would have already written a paper about it and published it. You don’t. We’re doing cutting-edge work. We’re doing new things that no one has ever done before. There are no resources online that can give you the answers to this stuff. You don’t know what you’re doing, and you have to struggle through and figure out what the solution is by yourself. Failures are inevitable, but it’s also really rewarding when you finally get to the end of that tunnel and see a project blossom into something beautiful.
And if neither of those applies to you, there’s this one quote that I always use to help me get over my nerves. It’s by Lemony Snicket, author of A Series of Unfortunate Events, a book series that I grew up on: “If we wait until we’re ready, we’ll be waiting the rest of our lives.” You may have a lot of anxiety and worry about what might happen, or whether you might fail, but doing nothing won’t change anything. So, you just have to go out and do it.
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