Advisor: Dr. Tabbetha Dobbins
Dissertation: Single-walled Carbon Nanotue Device Fabrication using Spin Coating of Dispersions
Senior Design Project: Design, construction, and competition of a Formula SAE racecar
Developed and coded 238 questions, including circuit figure images, for a circuits curriculum spanning 2 quarters for the open-source online homework system WeBWorK. All of the new problems have been sorted by subject and problem type for easy organization and local problem set creation with WeBWorK’s Library Browser. The new problems have also been tagged with common problem subjects and terminology. All of the problems are hosted on Louisiana Tech’s OPES github repository and have been included in WeBWorK’s National Problem Library
The effects of online homework in engineering have only been explored to a limited degree by the engineering education community. I was a member of a team who studied the effect of online engineering homework on student learning. I helped design a homework assignment process to establish a control group and then assess homework affects. I was able to analyze the results from the common quizzes, employing appropriate analyses to determine the level of knowledge attainment on the topics and to determine if statistically significant differences exist between the two populations of “paper only” homework and online homework only.
Microstructures of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) are fabricated utilizing standard UV lithography. Prefabricated and purified SWNTs are dispersed in aqueous solution with poly(sodium styrene sulfonate) (PSS). Cavities of differing sizes and geometries are fabricated in a photoresist and oxide layer on a silicon wafer to hold the aqueous suspension as it is spin coated. The water is evaporated, followed by removing the photoresist layer in a lift-off procedure to remove all of the excess SWNTs. The final structures were studied with SEM, EDS, and TEM. Electrical properties of the structures were also examined with I-V measurements. This simple and inexpensive fabrication process could allow SWNTs to be incorporated into current semiconductor manufacturing processes.
I performed a study to determine how HCl and HNO3 could be used to functionalize carbon nanotubes (CNT). Samples of CNTs were sonicated in HCl and HNO3 of various concentrations for various lengths of time. The samples were then studied at Brookhaven National Labs on a NEXAFS beamline. The resulting diffraction pattern was analyzed to determine what carbon – carbon or carbon - oxygen bonds may have been broken for future functionalization. Energy levels for both carbon and oxygen were studied to collaborate the data.
The world is becoming a smaller place between advancing communication technologies and the global economics of trade. This places higher demands on graduates because they are truly competing with those from around the world. Being the best school in a state or region is no longer enough to be competitive. Schools must be among the best in the world if they want their graduates to be competitive in the workplace. Graduates must distinguish themselves by going the extra mile, and they cannot be satisfied with the bare minimums. This standard is important in the upper level courses, but it is critical in regards to the fundamental courses. These courses are where students get a foundation of engineering principles across all disciplines. If students are not held to the highest standard in those courses the upper level material will have no foundation to build on. A solid understanding in engineering not only prepares students for subsequent courses, but builds a path for a future of lifetime learning in a changing world.
High quality students begin with high quality instructors. Students are ultimately responsible for their own performance, but students cannot be expected to have the drive to excel if they see an instructor who is not putting forth effort in and out of the classroom. Teaching is demanding and time consuming work, but an instructor is responsible to be active in class and not just echoing words on a page. Instructors need to be a participating member in the classroom, answering questions, monitoring progress, and filling in details or explanations in real time with the needs of the students. An instructor is also responsible for creating an environment, not only where learning can occur, but where excelling is encouraged and rewarded. Instructors must treat all students fairly, allowing them to be equally rewarded based on their performance. Finally, an instructor should be available outside of the classroom. Students will have questions and an instructor should create an environment that welcomes questions as well as feedback from the students. Instructors are busy, but they are obligated be available outside of class to give extra instruction, feedback, or encouragement to students on a more one-on-one situation. Instructors need to demand the best from students, but to do that, they must first give their best.
Engineering principals have widespread real world applications. However, it becomes easy to miss those applications in the mess of equations, variables, and terminology. Tying what is happening in the classroom to what goes on in the real world does several important things. Application aids learning by giving tangible examples to help explain difficult engineering concepts. Seeing applications in the classroom encourages learning by showing students what they are studying in the classroom is not only useful, but will also be necessary when they graduate. Application also motivates learning by making engineering exciting and interesting. Working long tedious equations can become dull and dry. Bringing in real world examples or demonstrations can be a breath of fresh air. This also allows the concepts in engineering to be made tangible to students. Engineering is about physical, real world problems, and to learn that requires seeing them in a tangible manner beyond equations in a book.
In education, students will rise to the bar set by the instructor. If an instructor does not set a high bar, demanding the most of his students, those students will have no reason to excel. Many students have hidden potential that may never come to fruition because they were never really challenged. To produce great students, an instructor needs to urge students to be great. An instructor that encourages students to perform beyond mediocrity allows them to reach their highest potential. Students will rise to the challenge given them. They will do more than even they thought they could do, but that will only happen when an instructor refuses to accept anything less than the student’s best.
Scaling the distribution of education creates the need to package topics into confined units. Concepts get chopped up into neatly defined topics that fit into a predetermined length of time. The consequence of which is students learn by organizing concepts into individual containers. They start a new course by creating a new container and putting all of the material from said course into that container. When the course is over, they pack up the container and stash it away. This creates a problem for students to be able to see and connect the relationships between topics. Calculus concepts show up in capacitor elements in circuits which then describe effects in semiconductors that are used to build digital systems. A common thread that runs through each of these topics gets lost because it is chopped up into multiple courses. Purposeful curriculum design can help mitigate these effects, but they cannot be entirely eliminated in our current educational system. A good instructor can help alleviate this deficiency by always providing context for new content. By defining the context first, students will be able to see how this new material fits with what they have already studied. An instructor should also be proactive in building bridges to future topics. Looking at a concept slightly out of bounds of the current course can create an opportunity for a future course to connect back to. Those bridges can provide a reference point for students to make the connections when learning new material. By seeing how new concepts relate to others, students can not only grasp the new material quicker, they can also understand it at a deeper level.
Finding an optimal solution to any problem requires a diversity of ideas. The lack of diversity in engineering workplaces must be solved in the classroom. Unfortunately most engineering programs are lacking diversity in the classroom. While there are a multitude of complex issues causing this lack of diversity today, the instructor is responsible for creating an open and inviting environment for all students. Outside the classroom this requires the instructor to engage with people of all backgrounds, races, genders, and sexual orientation. Inside the classroom, instructors need to be vigilant to counter any implicit biases. Instructors can also cultivate diversity by providing extra support to students from underrepresented groups in the classroom. Often times students from these populations have to overcome obstacles that others do not. By providing targeted help to their unique challenges, instructors can foster a haven where these students can thrive, thereby creating a diverse environment that benefits all students.