The Materials Universe Podcast: Episode 4

[00:00:00] Abbey Stanzione: Welcome to the Materials Universe podcast, a podcast where we will explore the world of materials science and how it shapes our lives. My name is Abby Stanzione and I will be your host this season. Join me as I interview researchers from the Center for Dynamics and Control of Materials at UT Austin.

Hello and welcome. You’re listening to the Materials Universe podcast. I’m your host, Abbey Stanzione. Today with me, I have Dr. Adrianne Rosales, who is an assistant professor of chemical engineering at UT Austin, as well as an IRG co leader. Welcome, Dr.

[00:00:34] Adrianne Rosales: Rosales. Thank you. Thanks, Abby, for having me here today.

[00:00:38] Abbey Stanzione: Of course. So diving right in, can you tell me a little bit about how you came to be at UT today? Yes,

[00:00:44] Adrianne Rosales: I was actually an undergraduate at UT. I grew up in Dallas and had always sort of known about UT and was excited to go to our flagship institution for college. When I entered UT, I was a little bit undecided what I don’t know.

sort of field I wanted to pursue. So I actually entered as a double major in mechanical engineering and UT Austin’s plan to liberal arts program.

[00:01:14] Abbey Stanzione: That’s so cool. I didn’t know you were a Texas native or a UT alumna. It is cool. You get to come back and be a professor. When did you decide that chemical engineering was the track for you and what brought you back to UT Austin?

[00:01:26] Adrianne Rosales: It took me about a year to figure out that my interests aligned really well with chemical engineering. And so I made that transfer after my first year. And part of what really drew me to chemical engineering was learning about the different research areas in that field. So not long after I transferred into CHEM E, I started looking for undergraduate.

research opportunities, and found one in the lab of Dr. Nicholas Peppis. So he was really gracious about giving a sophomore an opportunity to start volunteering in the lab and learning more about academic research and all that it entailed. So that sort of started my research journey. And from there, I explored other opportunities throughout undergrad.

I pursued summer internships at different companies. So I had one at Dow Chemical and one at Procter and Gamble. Through those opportunities, I realized that I really liked the jobs of people with Ph. D. s, and so that sort of inspired me to continue along the research journey and pursue my Ph. D. after graduation from UT Austin.

The Ph. D. is sort of a long path, but throughout that, my Love for research has been a constant. I would say that what brought me back to UT really started crystallizing in my postdoc when I decided that I wanted to go for academic positions because I was interested in teaching in addition to research.

I applied to a bunch of positions, but fortunately there was one at UT Open when I was on the job market. And coming back here and interviewing just felt like an amazing opportunity and environment. Everyone was so collaborative and some of my old mentors were here, but also there was a lot of new people here.

I was really grateful when they offered me the position. I felt that this was an excellent place to start my career and hopefully continue over the coming years. I like to tell my class every semester that I was literally in their seats. Well, I used to say not too long ago, but now it’s been a few more years since I was

[00:03:51] Abbey Stanzione: there.

That is actually really adorable. I love that so much. It sounds like you’ve had a lot of really interesting experiences like as an undergraduate student and then in the internship space as well. How do you feel like that played into your strategy or your approach to mentoring your graduate students, your postdocs, and often in the summer the program participants in the research experience for teachers and the research experience for undergraduates?

[00:04:19] Adrianne Rosales: Yeah, that’s a great question. I was very interested in research as an undergraduate, but I didn’t have that much experience with it, I would say, so in my family, no one’s gone to grad school. I don’t have scientists or engineers, you know, in my immediate family either. And so I would say that I was pretty naive as an undergraduate about what research entailed in the academic world, and it took a lot of learning to fully understand what it was about.

With undergraduates in particular, I try to keep an open mind about where they’re starting from, and I think I definitely am inclined to let people explore for a semester and just learn, you know, what is research? Is it Something that could align with their future career interests. Might it spark a passion for research like, like it did for me?

So not everyone is familiar with academic research and what it’s like. And there are many different types of academic research environments. You know, the individual lab has a lot of control over what those environments are like. And so sometimes, you know, we’ll get students that join for a semester and then decide maybe it’s not for them or they want to explore other opportunities.

And for me, that’s okay. I try to be a little bit judicious about it just because I know it’s a lot of mentoring investment, both on my time and my graduate students or postdocs time as well. So that’s really something that I try to talk with my individual group members about as we take on undergraduate mentees.

So the summer programs are really awesome, the REU and the RET programs, because they have sort of more hours on a week to week basis to really invest in research and understand a project and understand what research is all about. For graduate students and postdocs, I would say there have been a lot of influences now in my mentoring approach, probably one that I feel has worked the best is coming up with a set of goals.

That’s personalized to each student, uh, and so every August or so we fill out, uh, these plans. They’re often called individual development plans. Really, it’s just sort of a set of goals for the upcoming year, uh, that we work through together. And what I’ve Been trying to do more recently is check in on those on a semesterly basis to see how progress is going, see what’s changed, see if there are any opportunities that I can keep my eye out for that the trainee might not be aware of that could help them reach their goals.

That’s

[00:07:03] Abbey Stanzione: really great you were able to give your students and your mentees in the summer programs the space to explore their interests. And the individual development plans are a great way to help someone try to establish those clear goals. I’ve used them before in the mentor program and the students that utilized it found it really helpful.

Um, now, so you’ve had a pretty great career and you’ve been really awesome to work with in the MRSEC and as an IRG leader. So I was just wondering if you had to pick what is something you are most proud of in your career so far? Hmm. Hmm.

[00:07:37] Adrianne Rosales: That is a hard question. Right now, I feel like there are so many things that I would pick, but I, I think in the most recent history, probably this MRSEC renewal, you know, this was an opportunity that came up maybe a little bit earlier than I thought it would in my career, that, you know, putting together a collaborative center and Ed is an amazing director.

He, in terms of managing all the moving pieces that go into such a center renewal, but even, you know, leading an IRG, that was something that I hadn’t quite had on my radar. But a couple of years ago, when the call for renewal ideas came out, this was something that I was interested in pursuing in collaboration with several of the investigators that are now part of the new IRG, such as Dr.

Milliron and Dr. Anslin, Dr. Truskett, Dr. Kites. It was really great working with them and the process for going through the renewal. was many layers. So there was an internal competition within UT. We had to pitch our ideas in front of different faculty, in front of Ed, and then there was sort of a down select process that put the ideas that were coalescing the most forward in front of a set of external reviewers.

That was taken into account before a pre proposal was submitted to NSF. I’m just proud of going for it at a time, sort of not talking myself out of it and also being able to build these collaborations and, and have it ultimately make our science stronger. So that, that’s one from more recent history that I’m really proud

[00:09:26] Abbey Stanzione: of.

Yeah, that whole process was sort of intense. I feel like I came in at the tail end of it, um, but the lead up, the packets, the presentations, the collaborating, it was a process and it was. It’s very exciting to get the news that the center had been renewed and now we even have this podcast because of it.

[00:09:45] Adrianne Rosales: Yeah, that’s true. And, uh, you know, there was a lot of uncertainty in it as well, like especially during the pitch process, there was so many good ideas and teams out there that, you know, it really wasn’t clear to me, like which ones would ultimately be put forth and into the pre proposal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So that was one sort of challenge to to deal with. And then also, I had several conversations with my chair, you know, about whether the timing was right in being the lead on something like this. And just knowing that, you know, I had tenure, the tenure process coming up, was this something that was okay to spend time on?

And also, would it be okay for it? a funding agency like the NSF to see an assistant professor in this type of leadership position, or would that raise questions? So these were sort of the thoughts and concerns that I had that, you know, I could have let myself sort of Be intimidated by some of those aspects, but the department is so supportive and really that gave me a lot of confidence in going for it.

So I decided to go for it. I really made it a priority and leaned on my support network to create the space to do

[00:10:59] Abbey Stanzione: that. I’m glad you had a great support network and were able to follow the path to where you are today. You’ve brought up a great point here about your support network, and as someone in academia, I think it’s pretty easy to let your work blend into your home life, and also, maybe the balance of work and life, and with the new ease of now working at home.

So how do you approach that? Do you feel like you have a good hold on that, or do you feel that you find your work blending into your home more often?

[00:11:30] Adrianne Rosales: Yeah, it’s a great question. It’s one I think I’m constantly working on. But right now, I feel that my approach to it has evolved a little bit from earlier stages in my career.

One big catalyst for that was when I had my daughter four years ago, so she’s four years old now. And that put new constraints on my time that were totally different from anything. previous to my life up to this point. And so I would say, yes, I often bring work home, but I’m okay with that. So just like with my students, you know, we have IDPs and set goals for each year.

I have my own set of goals and priorities that sort of guide, you know, how I spend my time and I have both. work goals and family goals and personal goals, I would say for me, when I feel the most balance is when I’m making progress on all of those goals. So sometimes that means to make progress on what I want to accomplish.

And my job as a professor, yes, sometimes I do have to work from home or pull out my laptop after my daughter goes to bed at night, but that’s okay. It’s not every night and there are definitely seasons where that happens more often than others. The MRSEC renewal is one great example of that. I had this.

goal of, um, working on this large center proposal with other PIs. And it was something I was really invested in that required, um, a lot of time. And I was able to pull upon my support network at home to help me create the time. To to do that. Um, and it didn’t last forever, but during the time that we were working on that, I could put some extra energy into that proposal into research to make it happen.

And so it felt really good when we were able to accomplish that. And then sometimes, you know, the The balance swings the other way. Sometimes more attention is needed at home. And one of the great things about the job that I have is that it’s flexible. And so I can arrange my schedule to create that space to spend time with family if I need to.

[00:13:50] Abbey Stanzione: Yeah. You know, I would agree that my role also feels very flexible in that way. If I need to spend a little more time with my family. You know, I don’t have any kids, but I do have family that I enjoy spending time with. So, whether it’s taking a little extra time in the afternoon to go visit family, or just being able to go, um, visit my family for some time, but still have the option to work remotely, um, it’s just really nice to have that opportunity.

[00:14:15] Adrianne Rosales: Yeah, absolutely. I feel like more recently there’s been recognition, you know, that we can sort of structure jobs in that way. And so that’s great to hear.

[00:14:25] Abbey Stanzione: So one other aspect of working in academia that I would also imagine takes a role in the balance of work and life is the tenure process for faculty.

So for our listeners who might not be familiar, Tenure is the process for faculty members to be given a permanent position at their specific college or university. And that process varies from school to school, but it is a multi year process in which you build up your teaching experience, your research, and service.

So I was wondering if you could talk about the process in your department and your

[00:15:01] Adrianne Rosales: experience. Yeah, so in my department, I feel like the process was pretty good overall. I had a good experience in terms of putting together the package. I would say it really started around my third year as a professor.

So, we do these mid term reviews, or third year reviews, where you draft. very early versions of all the statements that will ultimately go into your tenure package, and you submit them to the department to get feedback on your progress so far, identify any areas of weakness, and sort of, you know, come up with a plan to make sure everything’s in good shape.

by the time you submit your package at the end of the fifth year. So those early statements and the feedback that I got from my department was really helpful in identifying priority areas. And then this past summer, it was nice to sort of go back to those early drafts and update them and flesh them out to be more complete versions of what I’ve been able to accomplish during this probationary period.

And so, there’s a, a lot of, there’s basically five statements involved, research, teaching service, there’s also a, a mentoring statement, and then a recognition statement, like awards and honors, and one thing I appreciated in putting all these together is that it was a good time to sort of reflect on where I’ve spent my time and what I’ve been able to accomplish with my group, but then also think about Looking forward, where do we want to continue to grow and, and evolve a little bit in addition to those statements, there’s several other documents that are submitted as as part of the package.

But I would say overall, it wasn’t too burdensome for for me just because we had had a little bit of precedent in working on them since the third year review. So now I’m just waiting. Those were submitted in August. It goes through several rounds of votes and approvals, so the department, the college, and the university.

So right now I’m sort of waiting to hear back on

[00:17:15] Abbey Stanzione: that. It sounds like you’ve had some great support through this process. This might be a tricky question for you, but what’s your thought on the debate of tenure versus no tenure? There seems to be two ways of thinking surrounding it, like one camp is for tenure with the thought that it allows for creativity and the ability to investigate new ideas through job security.

But the other group seems to think it allows for stale work or doesn’t motivate individuals. What are your feelings on that?

[00:17:44] Adrianne Rosales: Yeah, it’s definitely, um, a hot topic right now, given many conversations that are going on at different universities across the country. My personal feelings are that, you know, in academia, research intensive institutions, we’re trying to tackle problems that are really hard, right?

We’re working on problems that ultimately will lead to some outcome that betters society, you know, fundamental research takes a long time, and often the type of problems that we’re working on require risky approaches or creative solutions. And so I do think that we need sort of a long runway to try different approaches to the problem, you know, whether you’re working on like a new cell therapy or a new approach to address, you know, environmental sustainability, no matter what that problem is, we sort of need several years to really try an idea and see if it works.

And so my personal opinion is that 10 years protects those longer runways and lets you try those risky ideas that might lead to negative results for several years before something really works, and it can look like you’re not making much progress for a while, but, you know, it’s just sort of the nature of these sort of longer term problems.

So, that being said, I know that there’s a lot of, you know, caveats to that or how people approach different research problems. I think the other piece that’s important is that some problems, you know, are more controversial than others. Like, climate change, I feel like, has become a set of words in the news that can provoke a lot of emotions.

And, you know, based upon what legislation is, is in play, sometimes that research is viewed differently by different groups of people. So that’s, you know, one area where sort of being protected is helpful in trying different approaches. to the research. Then, the other piece is that it is important for recruiting faculty as well, so as long as some institutions have tenure and others don’t, I think there will be differences in how faculty are recruited to those institutions and sort of the outcomes.

[00:20:06] Abbey Stanzione: Yeah, that’s an interesting perspective on the great debate of tenure that I hadn’t really thought of before. I think now we’ve talked about the tenure process and importance of research, we should probably go ahead and start talking about your research. So what’s your group working on right now?

[00:20:21] Adrianne Rosales: Yes. So I’ve always been very inspired by the extracellular matrix in the body.

And so this is sort of a network of fibrous proteins that surrounds the cells in your body in various tissues. And what I’m so fascinated by is that the extracellular matrix or ECM is a very dynamic and active environment. It provides signals to biological elements like cells, and in turn, cells can sort of alter and change the extracellular matrix.

And so, the theme that connects my lab’s research together is developing synthetic mimics of the natural ECM. And then we apply those engineered matrices to different biomaterial applications.

[00:21:15] Abbey Stanzione: That’s really interesting. The field of biomaterials has really grown a lot in recent years. For those who might not be as familiar with biomaterials, they are any type of material that can interface with the body for a therapeutic purpose, or a material that can be used to model Biological processes or phenomena.

Some of the earliest examples of biomaterials were sutures that the ancient Egyptians derived from animal sinew. Common examples today include heart valves, hip joint replacements, dental implants, or contact lenses. It’s exciting to consider an even wider range of applications, though. Can you share some of the applications that your lab is

[00:21:54] Adrianne Rosales: working on?

Yes. So one project we have focuses on substrates for stem cell manufacturing. And so Basically, we are very interested in how the material properties of our scaffolds influence stem cell behavior. We have another project that’s looking at vascularization, and so we want to understand how our scaffold properties influence the laying down of new blood vessel network formation.

That’s also a stem cell project, and vascularization is really important in generating new tissue constructs that can be integrated with the body. And then we have some delivery focused projects as well. And so not only can our materials be used as scaffolds to grow cells on, but They could also be used to deliver a therapeutic, uh, leads to, uh, the need to control different properties.

So for example, we’ve been interested in understanding, uh, what makes materials injectable and how can we control those properties.

[00:23:06] Abbey Stanzione: Those are exciting projects with very impactful implications in medicine. I know there’s been a lot of interest in the use of stem cells in recent years. For our listeners, stem cells are a type of cell that can develop into a specific cell type, such as a muscle cell or blood cell.

The path that a stem cell’s differentiation takes depends on the cues it receives, whether these cues are mechanical or chemical. It’s useful to study stem cell behavior for creating models of Physiological processes, developing cell manufacturing techniques and advancing patient treatments. Some of the implications in medicine can include stem cell manufacturing, which is generating organs for transplant or regenerative medicine, medicine applications and in delivery focused applications like in, in cancer treatments in which it would allow for multiple therapeutics to be released at different times.

While these all sound really amazing for the future of medicine, what are some of the challenges that you’re facing with these?

[00:24:11] Adrianne Rosales: We look at a lot of fundamental structure property relationships with our materials. So sometimes, you know, we see interesting behavior that we didn’t necessarily expect, and so the injectable hydrogel project is one good example of that.

In that project, we had dynamic material. that we could extrude through a syringe and needle. And so, we thought, okay, this means it’s injectable, you know, we can inject it with our hands through a syringe and needle. But actually, once we took a closer look at the properties of the material, we started encapsulating cells into it and looking at these gels as a vehicle for stem cell delivery.

Our cells were dying. And so, We did a lot of detailed rheological studies and found out that the materials that we were working with were actually shear thickening. So they were getting stiffer under shear instead of softer under shear. And so one of my students, Andy, has done some really beautiful work in uncovering why.

that so. It’s not something that we anticipated at the start of the project, but I think it’s led to some new insight into the type of chemistry that we’re using to hold this gel together that I’m excited about and I’m really expecting it to have a lasting impact on the community. So that’s one example of some of the types of challenges we work

[00:25:39] Abbey Stanzione: on.

I feel like that is so much of science, taking a path in one direction, sort of expecting a specific outcome, only to find a totally different outcome, and then figuring out why. And so, what are some of the larger challenges that are in your field or that your field faces?

[00:25:58] Adrianne Rosales: I would say some of the more broad challenges in biomaterials at large, well, there’s, there’s many, but I mentioned vascularization earlier, you know, that’s still a longstanding challenge is how we can get a really strong network of a perfusable network of blood vessels in a tissue that integrates with those in the body.

So, you know, the whole dream of tissue engineering is to take cells from a patient, grow a functional tissue in the lab, and then implant it back into the patient. And in order to do that, there’s a lot of components that you need to get working together. Vascularization is one that’s been particularly challenging.

And our piece in this is understanding the role of the matrix that you use to grow the tissue ex vivo, how that influences the vascularization process. So as part of that, we work with collaborators that have expertise in the cells that lay down the blood vessel network. And we’ve really learned a lot from our collaborators in terms of, you know, what parameters are important and how the cells and the material interplay together.

[00:27:15] Abbey Stanzione: Wow. Okay. Yeah. That is interesting and has great implications. If you can really make that process better or easier. Since you brought up working with collaborators, I feel like this might be a good time to talk a little bit about the research that your group does in collaboration with Dr. Tanya Betancourt at Texas State University through the PREM partnership.

I know you guys had a recent publication around drug delivery, so I just wanted to ask you about that and your

[00:27:43] Adrianne Rosales: partnership. Yeah, definitely. Dr. Betancourt has been such a great collaborator. You know, we’ll often host a student from her lab during the REU program, for example, and I think the proximity of Texas State has really facilitated a lot of interaction between my group and her group.

And so she’s in the biomaterials space as well. One minute. sort of complementary direction is that she has focused a lot more on therapeutic delivery, whereas I feel like our group has done a lot with engineered extracellular matrices and some of the fundamental chemistry and materials development. We sort of had a very natural collaboration arise that you mentioned, but recently resulted in a publication where they incorporated these photothermal nanoparticles into our dynamic gels.

And what that enabled was for them to irradiate the construct, those nanoparticles would turn that irradiation into heat, which could then change the surrounding gel network, allowing it to sort of uncrosslink. And so that gave a really good mechanism for releasing an encapsulated therapeutic. And so they’ve shown that, you know, this approach can be used to tailor release of a encapsulated protein for drug delivery.

And from that publication, we’ve identified several Ways to, to move forward and optimize our design. And so we’re still collaborating. Now they’re looking at the impact of incorporating in different types of cross links to prolong the release and tailor the release profile better to optimize that therapeutic delivery profile.

That’s

[00:29:34] Abbey Stanzione: really fascinating. I feel like I don’t know as much about the details of the collaboration since, you know, I focus on the education and the outreach portion of the center, and while I often help pair the REU student in the summer, I wasn’t as familiar with that specific project. So switching gears back to the MRSEC renewal, which you brought up earlier, the research focus has been adjusted to a new track.

So with the new IRG, it is moving from reconfigurable porous nanomaterial network to fuel driven pluripotent materials. Can you tell our listeners how your research fits into the original efforts and now how it has adjusted to the new focus? So

[00:30:20] Adrianne Rosales: when we were starting to plan for the MRSEC renewal, I think one thing that we were really inspired by was this idea of active and out of equilibrium material systems.

So I’ve used the words dynamic a lot to describe the type of materials that my group works on. What I mean by dynamic is that Their properties will change over time, and sometimes that’s in response to a stimulus like light or chemical signal. But often when we design these responsive materials, you know, the material will change and then it’ll stay at its new property state.

once that change is complete. In nature, there are a lot of materials that will change properties, but then they’ll slowly go back to their initial property state, or they’ll be adaptive to multiple signals, uh, in their environment. The new direction of, um, the IRG that I’m affiliated with is to understand these out of equilibrium mechanisms and also to engineer new approaches to, um, design these sort of out of equilibrium mechanisms into materials that’s very similar to a lot of biological systems, and there’s sort of a growing research trend around how the different types of chemistry that we can use to to accomplish this.

So in my own group, actually we can use a lot of the same types of materials that we had before, but now we approach the dynamic aspect of it a little bit differently. Um, and so I would say that, you know, we’re just getting started on thinking about some of these, uh, chemical signals or we call them fuels in the IRG language, uh, and how those can be incorporated into our dynamic platforms.

But a lot of the, the core chemistries in our group are very similar to what we were working on before. Where we’re really learning a lot now is with some of the new faculty that have been incorporated into the IRG. And so in our new IRG, uh, we have incorporated faculty with more biological expertise so that we can learn from them, you know, how nature handles these adaptive and out of equilibrium mechanisms and use that knowledge to engineer it into synthetic systems.

[00:33:05] Abbey Stanzione: Oh, I see. That is interesting. I haven’t had too much interaction with the new faculty just yet, but I’m excited to see what the applications of the collaborative efforts of the MRSEC bring to the world. Okay. I have just one more question for you, and I know our listeners can probably guess what I’m going to ask.

But I’ve loved hearing the different responses to this question. So if you had to pick another field that’s not related to yours to study, what would it be?

[00:33:33] Adrianne Rosales: So, you know, when I started undergrad, I had a liberal arts double major and I, I feel like writing has always been something that I’m really interested in.

Interested in. So, creative writing, maybe trying to develop a career as a novelist or a writer of short stories, that would be my alternate life. There’s a lot that goes into, a lot of study that goes into the different types of writing. I would just be fascinated to learn about all of it. You know, the, the novel form, memoir.

Recently, I’ve been kind of tapping into that a little bit. So. at UT Austin, actually until very recently, that it was part of this program called the Op Ed Fellowship. And so I think for nine or ten years, UT has been a partner in this fellowship. The Op Ed Fellowship is a independent organization. They, their goal is to increase the number of pitches for op eds, particularly by women and people of color, people who maybe don’t know what, or who haven’t pitched for op ed pieces in the past, although the program was, is open to, to everybody.

And so I participated in this op ed fellowship this past semester and It has been modified a little bit. I can speak to that if you, if you like, but I learned a lot about, you know, what the structure of an op ed is and what sort of goes into the pitching process. And I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to sort of merge that with research in the future.

And you know, Use that style of writing to amplify all of the cool research that’s going on in my group and also in the MRSEC.

[00:35:28] Abbey Stanzione: I love that. I haven’t heard of the op ed fellowship that is a really interesting idea and allows for more ideas and more perspectives to be out in the world. I think I even read, or I could be misremembering, an op ed that you commented on about the tenure

[00:35:47] Adrianne Rosales: process.

Yeah, that was a piece that I commented on for CNEN. They were, yeah, they were writing a piece about the great debate around tenure again. And that was a very well written piece. And, you know, I think one thing that I’ve been reflecting on as a scientist and faculty member is sort of how to communicate our findings to the broader public and also just interface the public more.

And so writing has always been something that I have enjoyed doing and that I find to be a medium that works well with me. You know, I like to sort of reflect on things and, and, and put them down on paper. And so, yeah, commenting on pieces like that, maybe writing op eds of my own, those are are sort of directions that I’m interested in exploring to, to interface more with the public about scientific research.

Yeah,

[00:36:44] Abbey Stanzione: oftentimes the research just feels at this level that is just not reachable for a general audience to understand. And you know, that’s one of the goals of this podcast is to Really kind of, um, encourage everyone to learn a little bit more about the research we’re focusing on in the MRSEC and just research in general that has such big potential impacts and even current impacts in your everyday life.

So I think that’s just another cool way to go about it. And if you do end up writing an op ed or a memoir, just know that I’ll be behind the scenes reading those because I, I find them fascinating.

[00:37:21] Adrianne Rosales: Exactly. And you know, like I, I, we spend so much time on peer reviewed journal publications and that’s sort of our bread and butter as faculty and it’s important, but sometimes I, I also just want something that I can like send to my mom, you know, or, or my sister who are not scientists or engineers and something like an op ed or a write up that’s highlighting recent research and explaining why it’s important.

They are much more likely to read those, although I think, you know, they also try to, to read our journal articles too, every once in a while.

[00:37:56] Abbey Stanzione: Yeah. I remember watching a presentation by Dr. Stephanie Valenzuela, who was a graduate student within the MRSEC and who now works at Dow Chemical, but once in a presentation, she talked about her.

family who thinks she works on transformers like the robots and so her entire presentation in order to make it more Relatable to a general audience was about how her research was related to transformers, but it’s not actually about transformers So anyway, I hope that you can write those op eds for the world and so that the research is more accessible for everyone I also want to thank you so much for sitting down to talk to me today, Dr.

Rosales. It has been really great getting to know you more.

[00:38:41] Adrianne Rosales: Thank you, Abby, for having me.

[00:38:45] Abbey Stanzione: That’s all for today’s episode of the Materials Universe podcast. Thank you for listening to my interesting conversation with Dr. Adrienne Rosales. We hope that you’ve enjoyed learning something new. Please podcast with your friends or family.

You can follow us on social media at Texas CDCM on Instagram and X. Thank you to the National Science Foundation and the University of Texas at Austin and an additional thank you to the Lattice Audio Studio crew for their help with the production of this podcast.