Can magnets repel hurricanes? Well, no... but maybe new magnet technology could play a role in helping prevent future hurricanes. Jett Barham, a 4th year materials engineering undergraduate at the University of Kentucky explores motivations behind research into rare-earth free magnets while sharing his experience as a part of the 2026 REALIZE program at UC.
Rare earth elements. They are a hot topic in the news... but why? What technologies are they used in? Jett Barham, a materials engineering major at University of Kentucky, describes his summer doing research at University of Cincinnati and how new magnet research could shape the global energy landscape.
What happens when the biggest barrier to scientific discovery isn’t a lack of ideas, but the cost of the tools themselves? In this episode, Jarin Earle, a junior in Mechanical Engineering at North Carolina A & T State University, shares how a summer research project designing a low-cost viscometer changed the way he thinks about engineering; not as a way to build machines, but as a way to expand who gets the opportunity to do science.
