RICE

Yesterday was orientation for the RICE program designed for IPC teachers. I decided during orientation that Master Teacher Academy wasn't going to help me master anything, nor was I sure I would get to see any of the promised funds in a reasonable time, so I just stayed at Rice. We got assigned our labs. I am working in the Colvin group.
Dr. Colvin was named one of the top 20 scientist to watch by Discover Magazine in 2000. I've been assigned to two grad students, one is doing research on photocatalytic properties of fullerines, and the other is using iron-compound nanoparticles in a water purification process. The other teacher assigned with me in the Colvin group is working with two different grad students, and I've been listening to whoever is speaking.

Today after meeting with Adina to get brought up to speed on her research, she gave me a bunch to read to build my background knowledge, we are going to start some labwork on wednesday (sample prep) and perform some experiments on thursday. Ali Al-Somali is working with gold rods, ranging from 20-55 nanometers in size. He is developing processes to seperate and character these using HPLC. We watched a sample run on the HPLC today, then we went to the ELECTRONIC MICROSCOPE to look at some samples. I had learned to use a Tranmission Electron Microscope back in 1989, and of course haven't used one since. The one we went to at Rice seemed very familiar and it was amazing how much came back to me. I also hadn't used a HPLC but had used a gas chromatograph, so I understood the majority of things explained today. It all felt good, it was like being in grad school again. Start taking camera with me tomorrow, so start having daily images!