Victor A. Rodriguez-Toro, a researcher in materials and devices and an invited science correspondent for MRS Bulletin, interviews Olivia Graeve, a professor in the Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and director of CaliBaja Center for Resilient Materials and Systems about her group’s research on materials in extreme environments. Graeve’s recent research focuses on the morphology of nanoparticles of the ultrahigh-temperature ceramic tantalum carbide (TaC). Graeve discusses her group’s development of some control methods of the shape of TaC nanoparticles. Graeve further described her public outreach work of introducing a binational group of high school and university students to research under the ENLACE summer program within the CaliBaja Center for Resilient Materials and Systems at UCSD. As a binational materials researcher herself, Graeve provides insight into her experience and how universities and research centers can help students from underrepresented groups become more integrated into the scientific community. She also provides advice to the new generation of researchers coming from different backgrounds representing diversity in science-technology-engineering-mathematics (STEM). …...more
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