It has been about two weeks since arriving in Yonezawa…although it feels like I’ve been here a month. Yoshida-sensei, our gracious host, has brought the IRES group to many beautiful places and many more restaurants. Here are just a few of the amazing things I have experienced so far…
My favorite picture from the Kamo Aquarium which is most well-known for the extensive jellyfish collection.
This is one of the many different colored ponds we saw at Goshikinuma (Five Colored) Lakes in the Bandai Asahi National Park.
Here is me in the lab transferring the pre-gel solution into the mold. Once this solution is treated with UV light it can be placed in water to make a hydrogel.
Here is me holding the final hydrogel up, very nervously…this was purely to show that it was completely transparent. Thank you to Sazzadur Rahman for showing me this technique.
There hasn’t been a moment I don’t feel welcome here and not a single night where I can’t find someone to go to dinner with. Whether it’s in the lab or out on the town, there is no shortage of things to do. I’m very excited to see what the next 6 weeks have in store!
Yamagata University (a. k.a. Yamadai) and University of Vermont (UVM) definitely have at least one thing in common: the preferred mode of student transportation is the bicycle. After checking into their dormitory rooms on the Yamadai campus, the first thing our IRES students did was to rush over to the student center and rent five of the many city bikes the university owns. We found out that bicycles carry registration, much like our cars and motorbikes do back home.
Just like our Burlington, Yonezawa is located at the foothills of beautiful mountains covered with luscious green forests this time of the year. My friend, Yoshida -sensei, took us on a team -building hike around the Goshikinuma (Five Colored) Lakes in the Bandai Asahi National Park. The name comes in part from the iron oxide deposits that make the water look red in certain places.
Hiking the Goshikinuma (Five Colored) Lakes. Left to right: Yuki Tsuda, Tsukasa Yoshida-sensei, Kyle Ikeda -sensei, Chris Popham Georgia Babb, Grayson Glosser, Daniela Fontecha and Adam Dyer.
Good morning from Newark! The IRES team sits eagerly typing their blog posts and sipping overpriced airport coffee as we await the next hefty leg of the trip (Newark to Tokyo). This layover provided the perfect time to reflect on all we have done in just two weeks since assembling at the University of Vermont. At the beginning of each day we’ve had a Japanese lesson with Professor Kyle Ikeda, which has been one of my favorite parts of the day! While I still butcher just about every simple phrase we learned, I have truly enjoyed the journey. I went from knowing just about nothing to now recognizing the two alphabets, hiragana and katakana, as well as some simple kanji symbols. I anticipate much more learning to come once completely immersed in the culture and language.
While learning Japanese, I have also been learning many lab techniques I had not yet been exposed to. This program is the beginning of my undergraduate research career at UVM and so far, so good! At first, it’s very easy to feel as if you know absolutely nothing, however, being surrounded by amazing professors and fellow students who are willing to help each other out has created a comfortable learning environment. During one of the first few days we observed Professor Matthew White deposit electrodes on some of his lab’s solar cells they have been generating. He proceeded to demonstrate the photoelectric effect of these solar cells by shining white light on them to produce an observable current. Later on in the week, Professor Madalina Furis showed the intricate procedure of working in an optics lab. Big take away: patience is a virtue in this line of work.
Our arrival in Japan is close in sight, and there are many more laboratory techniques to grasp. I have the incredible opportunity to work with Professor Hidemitsu Furukawa’s group during our stay in Yonezawa. The work this group is developing will propel gel mechanics and robotics to new levels. His group is focused on the 3D printing of soft gels which is applicable to a wide variety of fields. Including, but not limited to, the medical application of the ability to 3D print functional artificial tissues such as blood vessels. I look forward to learning more about this research group and the techniques involved with 3D printing. To say I’m excited is an understatement!
Georgia Babb (バブ ジョージア)
Our IRES team before departing from UVM. Left to right: Christopher Popham (Princeton), Daniela Fontecha (NC State), Grayson Glosser(UVM), Adam Dyer (Grad-UVM), Georgia Babb (UVM)
It’s game time. Everything is packed, my very loud alarm is set, and I am ready to leave. I’m excited, there’s a mountain of work that is ahead, a culture that is polar opposite, food I have never tried, and a language I don’t speak, and I cannot wait. I am a home-body. I’ve spent my whole life close to home, I didn’t go that far for college … and now this. So lets see how this goes, but before that, there’s a really long day ahead of me.
With fellow IRES students the day before departure, purifying molecules in the Whalley Lab. From left to right: Chris Popham (Princeton) Adam Dyer (UVM-Grad), Grayson Glosser (UVM), Daniela Fontecha (NC State) and Georgia Babb (UVM)
Organic Electronics often requires working in a nitrogen atmosphere. Loading the substrates is the first step in preparation for organic thin film vapor deposition in the White Lab at UVM. Doing it with oversized gloves definitely makes it harder than it sounds.
I’m Daniela, a senior majoring in
physics and chemistry at North Carolina State University. When I heard about
this program I got very excited because I have been wanting to explore research
in organic electronics for some time – and to be able to spend my last summer
as an undergraduate abroad was just perfect. I arrived at UVM about two weeks ago
and had the chance to experience some the neat things Burlington has to offer,
such as great food and great views, before heading to Japan. While at UVM we
learned and read a lot about our research as well as about Japanese culture.
Most of our days were very intensive with Japanese lessons in the morning and
research in the afternoon. I learned a lot about the organic electronics research
with the guidance of Dr. Furis and Dr. White who also demonstrated experimental
techniques related to our projects to prepare us for the labs in Japan. Overall,
this has been a great start to the program and I can’t wait to arrive in Yonezawa
tomorrow and meet the other professors and students involved in this research.
Hiking the Sterling Pond Trail (Stowe, Vermont) with fellow IRES members Chris Popham (Princeton-left) and Grayson Glosser (UVM-center)
