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.
Kennedy Whiters lives by "Do not fear failure; rather, fear not trying." She participated in the REALIZE REU when she was a junior at Albany State University. Kennedy performed research on methanogens, a type of anaerobic bacteria that consumes carbon dioxide and turns it into natural gas, which we can use as a source of energy in power plants. In this episode, she describes her experience working in the lab of Prof Annie Rowe, where she found the lab group to be a good source of positive support, like her family.