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!
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)
