Materials Science: 2015 Summer Projects

Special Summer Series: Elizabeth Hoover de Galvez from the library's reference department, shares her observations of summer research at Coe. This summer she is working with Dr. Feller's materials science group.

The Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program kicked off this Monday at Coe with a total of 38 undergraduate students participating across seven working groups.  There is a mix of Coe students participating, from beginners to experienced researchers, along with students from other colleges and universities around the country.  I joined Dr. Feller's research group in materials science with 10 students and he and the students have been extremely welcoming and have allowed me to get hands-on experience with the lab equipment over the past couple of days.

For week 1, the students started with a deep cleaning of the lab.  On Tuesday afternoon, Dr. Feller announced the projects that students can work on over the summer and gave his students an opportunity to choose which ones they may be interested in.

Of the eight projects available, at least four will include some collaboration with other universities around the world.  For example, three groups will be making samples of glass which will be shipped to other universities for further research and analysis.  One bonus of these collaborative projects is that students may eventually be invited to travel to these other sites; in fact, one student will be going to England for a second time this summer to work with the researchers who've been using the glass she's made.

Two of the projects are related to a new discovery which was recently made at Coe.  The discovery was an unexpected difference in the way in which two related glasses softened when heated.  Students will continue investigating the phenomenon and work to test a hypothesis which seeks to explain it.

One interesting new project this year will analyze elements present in pennies minted during WWII, particularly 1944 & 1945.  During the war copper was needed for the war effort and so the mint briefly made pennies from steel and then, in 1944, began reusing copper shell casings to make pennies.  Dr. Feller said this would be the first research to analyze and characterize the pennies from 1944 & 1945 to look for unique elements or distinguishing characteristics within the pennies.  They won't have to destroy the pennies to analyze the elements--they'll use the chemistry departments new XRF (X-Ray Fluorescence) spectrometer gun, which provides a readout of all elements, including trace elements, present in an object.