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Dream : DREAM Fellows : 2008 Fellows : Rane Nolan
Rane Nolan
Interview
Q: What school are you currently attending?
A: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Q: What year will you be starting in the fall?
A: I will be a senior this fall, finishing my degree in mechanical engineering. I am minoring in materials science.
Q: Why did you choose to attend the DREAM program?
A: I chose to spend the summer in Philadelphia because I wanted to row at one of Philly’s famous boat clubs. I looked for a summer job in the area, and I discovered Drexel and the DREAM program. They offered the prospect for me to do some exciting research, and I decided that this was the best opportunity I could have for the summer and for my future, as well.
Q: Who are you working with, and what research are you doing?
A: My advisor is Mitra Taheri, the newest professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Her professorship has been endowed by a powder metallurgy company named Hoeganaes, and so I have been the first researcher in this new partnership between Hoeganaes and Drexel. The end goal is to create a powder suitable to make electromagnetic cores (for motors, among other things) that have better electrical and magnetic properties than existing steel lamination techniques. I have been examining Hoeganaes’ current product, an iron powder coated with phosphate, to understand how heat treatment affects magnetic properties and the phosphate coating. I have used scanning and transmission electron microscopes to look at the phosphate coating. With this knowledge, we hope to create a coating better suited for even higher temperature heat treatments—this will help us get even better magnetic properties.
Q: What are your goals/aspirations for the future?
A: I want to finish my time at MIT strongly. I am planning on going to grad school, and my experiences at MIT and Drexel are going to be how I get there. I’d like to study over in the U.K. and gain international experience. While I haven’t made any decisions yet, I am planning to move into aerospace research. I have wanted to make that my career work since I was young, but I did not want to specialize in that field during my undergraduate years.
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