MSE PHD Student Receives ALS Doctoral Fellowship
Emma Anquillare, a BU materials science and engineering student, is taking part in a special fellowship in California to expand on her expertise in chemistry, physics and engineering.
Moiketsi Thipe (COM ’19) interviewed Emma.
Emma Anquillare (MSE PhD ‘21) is a 2018 Advanced Light Source Doctoral Fellowship recipient at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California. As a selected participant, she gains hands-on scientific training and professional experience to complement her doctoral research. Fellows of the Advanced Light Source program work in residence for one year at the Advanced Light Source – a Department of Energy synchrotron research facility and one of the world’s brightest sources of ultraviolet and soft x-ray light.
Emma Anquillare shared details about her education and research in an email interview. The one-year Fellowship began in September.
Thipe: What do you hope to get out of this fellowship?
Anquillare: Well, first and foremost is publishable data. I also hope to work at a national laboratory after finishing my PhD, so it’s a wonderful professional opportunity as.
Why are you interested in synchrotron radiation?
I am really fascinated by the interaction of matter with electromagnetic radiation and electromagnetic material properties. Synchrotron spectroscopic techniques allow us to use high-energy radiation to probe a material and also gives way to perform x-ray spectroscopy. We can then use results to determine the electronic band structure, which ultimately dictates both magnetic and visible-range optical properties.
This fellowship is competitive. What made you stand out as an applicant aside from being enrolled at BU?
X-ray spectroscopy techniques constitute the core focus of my research advisor Professor Kevin Smith’s research group at BU. I already had a lot of experience assisting with synchrotron-based research experiments at the ALS, and even writing proposals and running my own beamtime shifts. The principal investigator I work with at ALS regularly collaborates with Prof. Smith. His students have been selected for this fellowship in the past and were very productive. Additionally, before coming to BU I already had a relatively strong record of publications, presentations, and even a patent, which is unusual for an early-career graduate student.
What led you the MSE PhD Program?
Several factors drew me to BU – I liked the urban location and that there was an entire building and programs dedicated to Photonics, as I am very interested in light-matter interaction. The opportunity to specialize my PhD coursework in electronic and photonic materials was exactly what I was looking for. I also liked the interdisciplinary nature of the division. I’m a materials student with two advisors, a physics professor and a chemistry professor, and feel welcomed by all departments. I actually TA’d for the Physics Department last year. And of course, BU College of Engineering as a whole has an excellent reputation and USNWR ranking.
Tell me about your research experience.
I am glad that I took the time to work after college before applying to graduate school – I would recommend it to almost any undergraduate. I learned so muchfrom each different experience.
I got my first undergraduate research job at UMass Amherst, working with Professor Paul Lahti. Professor Lahti was a good advisor with happy graduate students who recognized the importance of cultivating enthusiasm in undergrads. It was so exciting to prepare samples with liquid nitrogen and then spend hours seeing if I could collect EPR spectra of them using such a massive and complex piece of equipment.
After I earned my bachelor’s degree, I interned at an energy-focused French government lab. I got the internship by attending an annual European job fair at MIT – I was an undergraduate at Smith College at the time. This sparked my interest in working for a national laboratory back home.
Following that, I worked at Harvard Medical School where I learned about cell culture and biological research techniques. What I really took away from this job was the ability to do an effective literature search. A graduate student and I were tasked with reading and organizing over a hundred papers for a textbook review chapter we wrote, so I gained lots of practice. I also learned to look at publications with a more critical eye – not all papers are created equal!
As I was a Research Assistant at MIT, I worked on applied science projects for the first time. This was a great experience, because it helped me realize that science is also a tool to help people and solve problems. There is so much great potential in that. While at MIT, I worked on some cool Department of Defense projects with the US Army Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, which solidified my interest in government research.
