ASU, here I come

My last day of work at Sandia National Labs was Thursday the 13th, leaving me with one full day to wash clothes, pack up my belonging, clean the room, and prepare to depart the next morning. Ashlee's arrival at 1am (Saturday) was exactly what I had planned for, and we went straight to bed after her long day.

We considered riding the Sandia Peak Tramway before we left Albuquerque, but two $17.50 round trip tickets were a bit more expensive than we were willing to spend. Instead we enjoyed the a scenic route back to Arizona along U.S. Highway 60. We got to see the Very Large Array and passed through a couple national forests. Had we gone straight to Pat and Wanda's place, it would have be about 90 miles less driving then the interstate route, but once we went to downtown Phoenix to drop off Titus, it was about the same total distance.

I don't start classes at ASU until next week, but I have some orientation events this week, not to mention all the paperwork that comes with starting work/education at a new place. Citizenship verification, ID photo shoot, tax forms, etc have been taking up my time.

I'm sure many of you are curious about what exactly I'll be doing at ASU, so I'll lay out some of the details here. I'm starting as a PhD candidate in Materials Science and Engineering. I'm in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, specifically the School of Mechanical, Aerospace, Chemical and Materials Engineering, or MACME. Notice that including an 's' (for school) in the acronym allows it to be pronounced "smack me." This is one of several units in the engineering college, and the full list is here.

Returning to what I'll be doing, that's still a bit up in the air. Hopefully I'll have a better idea tomorrow after I've met with Mark van Schilfgaarde, who will be my advisor. PhD projects are driven by the proposals that get funded. Last spring Dr. van Schilfgaarde knew he would have enough funding to support another PhD student, but was hoping to get more funding relating to the stimulus money. He wants to start some energy-related projects, which I might end up working on. In any case, his (and my, eventually) specialty is simulation and modelling of electronic structures of materials. The location and behavior of electrons in materials is really what gives rise to many of the properties of materials, meaning that the more understanding we can gain of the electronic structure of a material, the more we can understand the material in general.

Because I already have my materials MS from CMU, I'm able to apply 30 credits toward the coursework requirement for my PhD. That, combined with the way the requirements work, means that I only have to take five lecture classes at ASU. Four are cores which everyone has to take, and one is an elective, meaning any grad-level materials course. I'll be done with all my classes in one year, which is good because it means that I'll be able to devote all my time to research sooner.

One final note: I can hardly believe it, but we are closing on the house a week from tomorrow!