Geoffrey: Excitement and Expectations
Hello, my name is Geoffrey, and tomorrow marks my flight to Beijing. I’ve been looking forward to this experience for so long, and it’s hard to believe that we will fly out tomorrow morning! I have just finished packing, and I’m hoping all goes smoothly tomorrow. In the past few days, I have been discovering all of the makeup work which will be waiting for me to return. Nevertheless, I am excited to experience China and present my research on such a diverse platform. When I entered the Call Lab at NC State for the first time, my research knowledge was quite limited, and I wasn’t convinced that my project would leave the lab, never mind the country.
This past summer and throughout the first and second trimesters of my senior year, I have been working on a new saltwater desalination filter which I designed and tested myself. I earned the opportunity to work in an Environmental Engineering Lab at NC State University under the mentorship of Dr. Douglas Call and Dr. Shan Zhu. Over the summer I designed a water filter which utilizes granular activated carbon (GAC), a material commonly used in industrial Brita waters to remove uncharged water contaminants. We hypothesized that, with an electrochemical desalination approach, we could leverage GAC’s electrically conductive property to remove charged particles, such as salt. My project has focused on determining the potential of GAC by systematically enhancing filter performance. Throughout the experience, I focused on improving my hard skills in the lab, such as lab technique and data analysis. However, I learned that the soft skills I gained, namely my communication skills, are ever more critical to my growth as a researcher.
I have had the opportunity to present my research at various setting thus far; high school research competitions, undergraduate research symposiums, and graduate research symposiums. Moreover, my research paper will be published in the 2019 edition of Broad Street Scientific Journal. This past weekend, I had the wonderful opportunity to deliver an oral presentation ta North Carolina Junior Science and Humanities Fair hosted at UNCW. Personally, research communication is the most satisfying part of the research process — the opportunity to share my passion with others, whether formally or informally, is always a pleasure. Having never been out of the country before, I am looking forward to the chance to travel and share my project with others.
Image by Andreas Schneemayer from Pixabay