Summer interns’ lab work underway

The Summer Scholars in materials science and engineering have decided on their lab assignments and research projects.After hearing enticing faculty presentations and taking lab tours, the interns, who were cosponsored by the Center for Materials Science and Engineering and the Materials Processing Center, had to make difficult decisions regarding which labs to visit.

Luke Soule found all of the projects interesting, but he chose to focus on electrochemistry and work in Professor Yang Shao-Horn’s Electrochemical Energy Lab (EEL) in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.Graduate student Karthik Akkiraju gave a tour of the lab and talked about a number of projects he was working on about how catalysts reduce the amount of energy needed to start electrochemical reactions in energy devices.

According to Akkiraju, Shao-Horn looks for students who are enthusiastic about their work and encourages students to be independent and cooperative.Additionally, he emphasizes the group’s family-like atmosphere.You never work alone at EEL,” Akkiraju asserts.