This is a reading of Chapter 1, second half, on the connection between Nanoengineering and all the other fields of engineering: electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and bioengineering. Footnotes, figures, and problems for this chapter can be obtained from my book, Introduction to Nanoengineering, which I coauthored with Robert S. Ramji. If you'd like access to these resources, consider buying it or asking your institutional library to buy it! https://a.co/d/5SxYBVm ..read more

Part 1 of 2 of Chapter 1 of my book, an annotated fireside reading. Available in hard copy with footnotes, figures, and 150 solved problems, here https://a.co/d/4FZ73Z9 ..read more

My thoughts on what research is, what function it serves in society, how it is differentiated from "science," and how undergraduate students can obtain research positions at a university ..read more

Beyond finance, what actually IS a research university? What is its place in society? What is its mission and mandate? Where do you fit in ..read more

This is a talk I felt compelled to give after the grad student / postdoc strike in the University of California in the fall of 2022. There was so much I didn't understand about university finance. In an effort to learn more, I decided to put together this talk and share it as a professional development seminar to PhD students, postdocs, and faculty at UC San Diego (UCSD). Halfway through preparing this talk, I came across a WONDERFUL book by Andrew Comrie, Like Nobody's Business: An Insider's Guide to How US University Finances Really Work, which provided me with the viewgraphs compiled from h ..read more

A few uncategorized tips for working with your PI in grad school ..read more

Topics include generating ideas, finding the right funding agency, working with program managers, the grant proposal as an experiment in psychology, what goes on behind closed doors, and how to write concisely and convincingly ..read more

I spoke in this episode with Maynard Okereke. Maynard is a trained civil  and environmental engineer who has developed a second career in  scientific communication for young people and particularly young people  of color. He arrived at this interest from previous careers in  engineering and then acting and music. He is also a seasoned  entrepreneur, forgive the pun, with his own line of flavoring salt which  are vegan and number one selling brand on Amazon. He is the host of  hip-hop science as his alter ego, Hip Hop MD. He is a renowned public  speaker ..read more

In this video, I discuss how to write an effective and engaging statement of purpose, how to structure your essay, and how to use your  writing to compensate for potentially weaker sections of your  application. Thanks to the California Forum for Diversity in Graduation Education for the Invitation to give this talk. This work was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation  CMMI-2135428. The views expressed are those only of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the sponsor, host, or UC San Diego ..read more

This is an unusual episode for me. Rather than responding to questions about graduate school, in this video, I responded to an interviewer performing an ethnographic survey about how researchers in bioengineering and bioengineering-adjacent fields view certain controversial subjects like human modification.  0:50 Would you be in favor of a prenatal treatment such that it would be possible for children to live 200 years?  2:04 What if we could guarantee no inequities, and anyone that would want it could allow their children to live 200 years?  2:36 Why wouldn’t you want to live 2 ..read more