Graduate Student Profiles

Jennifer Atchison: Lifelong Learner

Ph.D. student Jennifer Atchison first came to Drexel as an Electrical Engineering major while she was working as an electronics technician in the U.S. Navy. She was extremely interested in learning how the electronic devices she worked on actually functioned. After one year into her electrical engineering courses, she took her first materials course and had a pleasant surprise...

From Science to Engineering: B.S./Ph.D. Student Naomi Hampson

Materials science and engineering is the engineering discipline known to be the bridge between the hard and applied sciences. Drexel materials students embody both aspects of the field in their varied backgrounds. Naomi Hampson is no exception. Naomi came to Drexel from a dual physics and engineering program...

Stephen Niezgoda: Exploring the levels of materials

Stephen Niezgoda first became interested in materials while working as an aircraft mechanic. "I witnessed vibration induced fatigue cracking in sheet metal, stress corrosion, and delamination in composite materials. I became curious and wanted to learn more about why materials break," he says. It was Stephen's curiosity that led him—although somewhat indirectly—to Drexel...

Aaron Sakulich: Building the Pyramids

“I cannot imagine a project I could be more enthusiastic about,” says Aaron Sakulich, a recent graduate of Drexel University’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering.  Sakulich, who received his B.S. in materials engineering this past June, has transitioned to pursuing his master’s degree with materials science and engineering professor Dr. Michel Barsoum...

Milan Ivosevic: Ideas & Creativity

Milan Ivosevic’s homeland of Vojvodina, North Serbia may be worlds away from Philadelphia in both distance and culture, but it is the foundation for why he is in materials today. In elementary school, Milan thought he wanted to be an artist who painted portraits for a living, but his family’s tradition of blacksmiths piqued his curiosity...

Svetlana Dimovski: "Out of the Box" Thinker

In a place where the East meets the West, where the balance between the turbulence of politics and the warm, generous hearts of its people is often difficult to describe to an outsider—Svetlana Dimovski packed her bags one late August day a few years back and traveled to Drexel University...

Jonathan Thomas: Breaking Out Of Traditions

If Ph.D. student Jonathan Thomas hadn’t jumped at the chance to work under Dr. Michele Marcolongo researching hydrogels that could potentially serve as artificial discs for the back, he may have taken up meteorology and be nothing more than another local weatherman...