Testimonials from Former EUV Center Students and
REU Alumni
Holly Barth "I was lucky to be a part of the EUV center. The center has offered me extraordinary guidance and experience which I have used to further pursue my career interests. My job as an undergraduate researcher in the Center of X-Ray Optics group at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory allowed me to network with people in industry. In particular, I was able to find a graduate student to mentor and advise me while I pursued my own research. We are still in contact today and I confide in her when making decisions about my further research and career plans. After graduating from UC Berkeley I was able to get a full-time position in a related field that I was interested in. All and all, the EUV center has greatly furthered my personal and career goals and I am thankful I was part of it."
Srinivasan Nirmalgandhi
"Graduate school taught me the way to approach the problem and arrive at a meaningful solution. I spent a major portion of my graduate life with the EUV center. The center gave me an opportunity to work on cutting edge technologies that are being actively pursued by the industrial leaders. Collaborative research with partner institutions of the EUV center widened my exposure to various high-end developments in various parts of the world. I acknowledge the efforts of the faculty members of the center, universal experts in their respective fields, in guiding the students to accomplish their dreams."
Darrell Christensen"My experiences at the EUV Center may have a somewhat different twist than the average student. I entered CSU's Electrical Engineering program as a non-traditional student at the age of 43. I had worked in the outside world as a manufacturing engineer for more than 20 years. For me, the chance to work at the EUV Center as part of a team working on something totally different than what I normally worked on made a lot of sense from a career diversification standpoint. From what I was seeing in my work outside of the Center, lasers, in general, were becoming an integral part of many manufactured products.
Additionally, a myriad of laser products were used in the manufacturing process of many other products including a variety of sensors, defect scanners, vision systems, and color detectors. Graduate student Darrell Christiansen now works for Eastman Kodak as a process engineer. So here is my take on what a person takes away from being part of the team at the EUV Center:
1. Project and Timeline management (what's it going to take and how long)
2. Budgeting (keeping your project within your budget)
3. Purchasing products and services with a variety of outside world vendors
4. Teamwork (working as part of a group with each individual an integral part of the team)
5. Being on the cutting edge of scientific development of a product or process
All of these have proven to be valuable to me in my work with Eastman Kodak where I am now a process engineer, with their Inkjet and Thermal Media manufacturing facility, helping Kodak make the transition from traditional photography to digital photography.
Lastly, I can't say enough good
things about the staff and other students I had an
opportunity to work with at the EUV Center. Even
though things could get a bit hectic and frustrating
at times, we all worked together to achieve the goals
set before us. The people truly made my time there
a fun experience."
"The EUV ERC center provided me with many opportunities as a graduate student. I was able to collaborate with a group at the University of California, Berkeley on the experiment I was working on to obtain essential calibration of our data. The center also allowed me to establish relationships with other students and professors outside of my own university, providing many benefits for future collaborations after graduating.
In addition, I was able to visit other universities and become familiar with their experimental resources. Finally, the center gave me a broader view of my field of research and a better idea of how what I learned in graduate school could be applied."
Emily Gibson graduated with her Ph.D in 2004. She received a NIST/NRC postdoctoral fellowship, and is now working with Ralph Jimenez's group at JILA/NIST
Timothy C. Lei"The ERC center opened an opportunity for me to collaborate with other researchers at several other research institutes. Through these collaborations, different areas of expertise were brought to bear on some very difficult and truly interdisciplinary scientific problems. The experiment I worked on during my time at the EUV center (time-resolved ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy to study molecular adsorbates on metal surfaces) requires combining of techniques for ultra fast laser science, high harmonic generation, physical chemistry, and x-ray optical science.
Because modern day scientific research often requires knowledge across many different fields, the EUV center provides a great opportunity to equip one to work in these diversified research environments. I consider that the most valuable asset I obtained during my time in the center, which is hard to achieve in other places."During his Ph.D. study, Tim Lei built an apparatus to study molecular dynamics on metal surfaces using ultrafast extreme ultraviolet pulses. His current interests are to observe dynamics of catalytic reactions on metal surfaces.
Kristine M. Rosfjord"I enjoyed being a graduate student member of the EUV ERC because of the combination of excellent science and the community atmosphere. Being a part of the center affords a student access to experts with a variety of expertise relevant to short wavelength experimentation. The ability of everyone in the center to interact in such a positive manner makes the science even more fun."
Mark Dansson
"I worked at the EUV ERC for 10 weeks during the summer of 2004. The program offered me exceptional insight into some of the leading research in optics technology today. I was paired with great professors who were leading researchers in their field. They placed me in charge of a new project to test specially designed mirrors to improve the power of some of the world's shortest pulse lasers. There is no question that my project placed important responsibility and resources in my hands, and offered me a unique opportunity to learn project leadership, as well as new scientific material.
The professors were very enthusiastic about following my progress and learning about new results. Besides focusing on my own project, I was also involved with multiple graduate students and their projects, which gave me wide exposure to advanced optics. Outside of research, I was in very convenient housing, and met very intelligent and fun peers from all around the country and even the world. The Boulder area is magnificent for social events, all from spending time in the local town spots, to going hiking on some of the regions famous mountain peaks. My only regret is that the summer was only 10 weeks long, as I would have loved to continue my research and get to know the other students more. The experience has truly been invaluable to my understanding of graduate level research and allowed me to witness the wonderful Boulder area with my own eyes."
Franklin Dollar
"The results that our lab came up with
were the most rewarding part of the summer. When our
progress was getting better and faster, someone had
mentioned, "research isn't supposed to be
this easy." The coherence of our group and the
breakthroughs we accomplished made me feel honored
to be a part of it all."
Michael Gilbert
"The most rewarding part of the summer
research experience was to have the opportunity to
work in a lab with some very bright scientists and
to experience graduate level research at the undergraduate
level. This program has led me to consider choices
for graduate school that I had previously dismissed.
For example, I am now considering graduate school in
experimental physics, and even electrical engineering."
Haydee Guzman
"What I found most rewarding of the REU
program was obtaining experience working in a lab and
working as a group with sophisticated equipment. I'm
considering graduate school in the area I worked on,
which is something unfamiliar to me was and that I
didn't expect I'd like so much."
Herman Bravo
"What I liked most was working with my hands
in the machine shop, making great friends and seeing
my work come alive. The support I received from professors
Rocca and Menoni encouraged me to apply to grad school.
I appreciated being able to work with great professors.
I was able to show off what I knew and my work was
much appreciated."