NEWS

Over the summer, two students participated in the NM EPSCoR Externship Program. The Externship Program is a research exchange program that allows New Mexico graduate students (with an existing assistantship) to spend a semester or summer doing research at a partnering New Mexico university or research facility. This report is from NMHU student Xu Wang about his summer at New Mexico Tech.

This my second visit to this beautiful quiet university [NMT] with great help from EPSCoR. And my first chance to know this school was also from EPSCoR`s All Hands Meeting. At that meeting I met lots of professors and talent students from all over New Mexico. At the meeting they shared their ideas and progress in many areas and they make me excited (the food was good too!). During the meeting I learned that students can applied for the 2015 summer externship, and I made my decision to apply it. Then I consulted with the nice lady charge of the externship, Tracy Hart; she is really helpful and I learned a lot of information. Then I just followed the guidelines on EPSCoR`s website and with the help from my advisor, the guest advisor at New Mexico Tech, and EPSCoR, I successfully got the chance, and EPSCoR even granted me money for housing and traveling.

June 8th is the day I got to NMT, with the help of my lab mates I checked in and got everything settled down. The dorm is cozy and nice with a big window from where I can see the beautiful view of the green trees and grass under the blue sky, and this beauty makes you feel good for the whole day. The lab is clean and bright and everything is well organized, and there is a lot equipment that we don’t have in my original school. My lab mates are really friendly; they like to help both in lab experiments and life in the school. The guest professor Dr. Huang is an excellent teacher and guide in the experiments. He not only taught me how to do the research but also gave me a lot of good advice on life.

Having such nice people help me, the experiment went well. I tried to fabricate membranes with micro-pore that can be used to produce pure water from salty water like sea water and oil field waste water which are quite common. After searching for proper materials, making solutions and tests, finally I successfully fabricated and ran some tests on the membrane.

Here at NMT people enjoy sharing their ideas on every aspects with you, and that is really inspiring. And I have more chances to operate all kinds of machines like rheometer for polymer, membrane casting machine, 3-D printer and many others; these machines help a lot in the program. And these chances are rare in the school where I come from. Dr. Huang is really helpful and he will always ask your opinions on the experiment and then discuss with you. Now the the externship is coming to the end, I am really hope the time can pass slowly, because of the friends here, the nice professors here and the beautiful scenery. I am really grateful for this opportunity, thanks to all those who helped me!