September 2024 - STLE Student Members Speak Out

This month’s episode is dedicated to highlighting the incredible experiences and benefits of being a student member of STLE.  Join us as our host, STLE UK Student Chair, Nicole Rosik interviews STLE student members Andrew Velasquez of Southwest Research Institute, Parker LaMascus a doctoral candidate at the University of Pennsylvania, Alexander MacLaren of PCS Instruments, and Manisha Tripathy of Bruker Nano on their experiences in utilizing the benefits of STLE to start their careers.  

From networking and professional development to mentorship and community involvement, our student guests will share their personal stories and insights into how membership has positively impacted their lives. Whether you're a current member, considering joining, or simply curious about what the association has to offer, this podcast is for you.   

For more information on STLE, please visit https://www.stle.org/ If you have an idea for our podcast, or interested in being a guest, please Email STLE Director of Professional Development Robert Morowczynski at rmorowczynski@stle.org . Also, we love your feedback, please take a minute to provide us with your thoughts at Perfecting Motion Podcast Feedback.

Transcript

Unknown Speaker  0:08  
Welcome to Perfecting m]Motion, an STLE podcast series that talks with members and industry professionals about current issues and trends impacting the global tribology and lubricants community.

Unknown Speaker  0:21  
Hi everyone. I'm Nicole, the current chair of the STLE UK student chapter and an entity student at the University of Birmingham. Welcome to this month's STLE perfect in motion podcast. In this episode, we are going to talk about the opportunities the STD have given to students and early career researchers working on Tribology. We are going to cover topics like outreach available for the STLE opportunities it gives people. And we will discuss how can the STLE engage with students more. So today, we have a panel of speakers from all around the world. And let me introduce to you, Alexander McLaren from Imperial College London. Hi, Dr Nisha Tripathi from Brooker in California. Hi. Then we have Parker Lamaskas from the University of Pennsylvania. Hello, and Andrew Velasquez from Southwest Research Institute. Hello, welcome everyone. And I think first maybe let's start with introductions and how each of you got involved with the st le, so Parker, would you like to start sure happy to so? STLE, I really became involved with once I joined the group of Rob Karpik at the University of Pennsylvania. Before that, I hadn't been in tribology, exactly, but I had been doing some undergrad student research on wind turbines. So I was very interested in sustainability. And then Rob brought me on on a project that was also related to sustainability, but this time from the lubricant side, and I was able to, like, present some of my early research at local chapter meetings for STLE, and then as soon as the lockdown portion of the pandemic was over, I was able to attend my first st le annual meeting. Great. Thank you, Andrew, would you like to go next? Yeah, sure, I did actually know anything about tribology until, oh, man, I want to say I was applying for internships or and research opportunities back in 2017 and I remember I got an opportunity with Paul Michael from the Milwaukee School of Engineering. And one day, randomly, again, email from a professor, Ashley Martini, who is a professor at my school, and she's like, Oh, I heard you got this opportunity. It'd be good to meet you and get to know you, because I know this person that you're doing research with. So I remember walking into her office one day and she asked, Do you know what tribology is? I'm like, no idea. And then the person who showed me is like, Stripe curve. She's like, Do you know what this means? I'm like, Absolutely not. She's like, well, you'll learn it this summer. And after the summer, she invited me over to her group do some undergrad research. And then after, you know, I think the next year, in 2018 I joined my first st to present the research I did with Paul Michael. And then from then, I just continued to stick with STLE and continue with Tribology. And here I'm now doing tribology research.

Unknown Speaker  3:00  
Manisha, yeah. So just like Andrew, even I did not know anything about tribology in kind of when I started grad school, such my advisor, when he joined his group, he asked me to present something in STLE, but then I was like, Oh, I'm an introvert. I don't want to go to conference. Are there too many people? I'm not comfortable. So I procrastinated for the first couple of years of my PhD, and finally, in 2020 I got ready. Okay, fine. I have to go and meet people this year, and that's when COVID happened. So the conference got canceled. The next year, it went virtual. So I attended my first STLE conference in 2022 and I was just blown away. So ever since then, I have been trying to be more active, proactive, participate in stly, meet more people, and then just participate in the committees and everything. So that that's my brief intro to how I got into STLE and where I am at right now. And interestingly, I even got my current position broker nano at st I met the people at Druker, and they had an opening, and I was like, Oh, I'm graduating soon. So that's how I got into this show, brilliant. And Alex, it sounds like Manisha and I have a lot in common. My first FC le was also 2022, where I attended the annual meeting, and I was also blown away. Yeah, it was fabulous. At the time, I was in my second year of my PhD at the Imperial College tribology group, and obviously I heard lots about it, but this was my first opportunity to go. And one of the awesome things was, although we only worked down the road from the people who are PCs instruments, and obviously I was doing some work with them, I actually met those people first at st, and that's where I'm now working too. So I have st to thank for that. But my my inroads were really quite you know, it's like jumping into the deep end. It was like, here, here are loads of people. And that was a time after which we hadn't really seen lots of people in one place. So, um, it felt like, in so many ways, an awesome awakening. Yeah, that sounds great. And I think we can, like, move on to the next question. So like, how do you guys think.

Unknown Speaker  5:00  
That the STLE supports you, or how could it better support you, for example, in your careers and your research, networking, all sorts of things. Well, I'll say for me, as an undergrad, I you know, STLE was the first conference I ever attended. And you know, it is a bit overwhelming, especially as an undergrad. You know, you don't know anybody. There's tons of professionals around, but you try to meet with people, especially the professionals STLE, and a lot of them are very friendly, so it kind of it helps you kind of get familiar with tribology and what other people are doing. And for me, at the current job I'm at now, is actually a way for me to meet my current employer, because they're also attending STLE, and it's like, oh, before you know, I go for an interview, we can meet in person to see if you would be a good fit. So I think it was STLE in Florida. Was that 2022?

Unknown Speaker  5:52  
I want to say, yeah, yeah. That's where I met Peter Lee and Carlos Sanchez here at Southwest. And you know, we got to talking. They got to know me better. I got to know them better. And then, you know, from then on, we continue with interview, and here I am now, so it's a great way to meet people and kind of network. And you know that applies to industry jobs, like I think all of you have mentioned, but then also to, like, academic side of things, because I'm still in my PhD, so I have just beginning the job search. But even then, scle has been really helpful. So in 2022 I met Alex there, and we were just PhD students commiserating about a particular instrument that we were working on, and then we realized, by the end of the conference, oh, the things that we've had problems with, with this particular instrument, we've had slightly different problems, we both found a way to solve that problem, and this might be something that's useful to other people. And so we kind of from there, launched into a collaboration, and it was really just born out of, like, making friends and seeing each other's research and being kind of impressed by that, and kind of going from there, yeah, it's a great opportunity.

Unknown Speaker  7:01  
That was also amazing for me, because Parker sort of came up and said, Oh, this issue that you care about, I care about too, which, as a PhD student, is such a rare thing to hear. But also because we have different perspectives and we're working on slightly different things, we could sort of both bring what we had to this work and the collaboration that sort of developed over a year or so, and we then wrote a paper together, and sort of the two of us, and Parker's advisor, Rob Karpik, are the authors of that paper. It was released very recently. Yeah, I'm really proud of it. It was amazing. It felt like a really big part of my experience as a PhD student. And that wouldn't have happened without Parker. It also wouldn't happen with that? STLE, yeah. I also had, like, very similar stories, like, as a PhD student, just like Alexander mentioned that it's a really big deal when someone else comes and talks about they have the same issues that you have been going through. Similarly, I also had, when I had my poster session in 22 when I attended that I had, like, all these really big names in tribology come up with session, give me pointers, tell me all the good things I have done, all the things I could improve, and even like I found some mentors who are actually real life mentors. Right now, for me, I reach out to them even when I face any issues or I'm stuck with any problem. Collaborations also are coming up. And now that I'm joining committees and everything, we get to talk about the trends in tribology and how the future is going towards how we can be a part of it. Help the upcoming students, give them a little bit of hand to come in and talk about, give them just little bit of boosting help. So that is what Australia is. I still get amazed every year about the talks, and every year I did not even think of the talks that I saw this year, and I was amazed all the research that is going on, all the progress we are making in the field of Tribology.

Unknown Speaker  8:49  
That's brilliant. It seems like the STLE is really like, trying to engage, like harder, like students and like, it brings people together, which is absolutely amazing, like people from like, all around the world. So that's great. And what are you guys thoughts about, how can STD engage with students more, like, both undergraduate and postgraduate students? Like, what could they do to kind of engage more with students? I wonder if one thing that could happen is, at the moment, STLE is fantastic at connecting professionals, and it's really good at connecting the industry sphere to the academic sphere. But actually, as students, we're still a little bit siloed, like we meet each other once a year at the scle conference. And if you're in Britain, there's this awesome thing called the scle student, a UK student chapter, which Nicole knows something about, because she chairs it. And that was amazing, because there's this student only conference, the first of which was in October, tribal link. And that was amazing. And it was such a different experience to say a full scale international academic conference, because really, there were only students there and a few industry partners, but they didn't present. 

Unknown Speaker  10:00  
To connect to people that I like you, people who are sort of doing the same thing that you are in a really chill environment. And I don't know if that exists in every chapter of SEO, but that's certainly something that more of the same in the UK would be absolutely amazing. I think also, particularly because I started my PhD in COVID, I really value that idea that I know who is in Southampton, and I know who is in Birmingham. I know who's in Sheffield, working on stuff that's relevant to me, or just stuff that's of interest. Because ultimately, I wouldn't know them, not having met them, and not having read that bit of the literature. Yeah, just to kind of like, build on what Alex just said, like that was basically the aim of, like, us creating the STD student chapter in the UK, because, like, we thought that there was a lot of like connections, like between professionals and, like industrials and academics, but like, students really didn't get exposed much to like each other. So we decided to kind of like bring them all together and create this like conference called tribal link that we it's actually happening in November this year as well, in Leeds. And we try to, like, bring people from all sorts of universities around the UK to, kind of like, come together, like, show their research network, like, just meet each other, because, you know, at the end of the day, like, if you're going to stay in tribology, you might end up working with those people. So like, the sooner you know them, the better, right? Stay true.

Unknown Speaker  11:18  
That's good point. Because, yeah, I don't, I know is when I go to SEO, I mean, the only, like, I guess conference, I guess meeting, I remember going to, was the early career session that happens, I think, the night before the main talks. And it's only, like an hour or two, and that's like the only period you can, I guess, have a friendly network session at the conference. So maybe more sessions, or, I don't know, but I do like that the UK does have their own student chapter. You know, I think the US could build upon that, because I know a student, yeah, it can be pretty intimidating when you're amongst a ton of professionals who've been in industry for many years and are professionals.

Unknown Speaker  11:56  
Yeah, sometimes I think it's actually the word networking that makes it seem harder than it is, because networking is like, Oh, I've got to make friends in order to get something out of it, like a job connection, or a reference letter or whatever. In my experience, though, like the most productive collaborations have been the ones that started with friendship and started with like, a trust of the other person's quality of work, the other person's work ethic, personal integrity, etc, which is really just about, like, getting to know somebody and learning about them, and like, friendship more or less. And that requires getting students in the same room with, like, maybe less of a goal towards finding a job, or like, impressing our and our bosses and so on. So yeah, for me, the most successful quote, unquote, networking events have really just been students leading, kind of their own interaction time. And that's happened for me at the Gordon research conferences. There's, like, a student focused portion of those that could be something that would be really successful for STLE, I would guess, just kind of building on what y'all have mentioned about the student sections and student conferences as well. Yeah. I mean, we all do have some student chapters, city chapters in different cities, like in the territory Chicago, there are some chapters there, but it's like very hardly. We have about eight or 10. So I think that is something we can look into where the big tribology groups are located. We can expand these chapters in those cities have more people come in. The other thing that building under Parker was saying, what just gave me thought was if we had some kind of, like, hands on workshop, like, where you come and build your own, some tribology experiment, like, suppose how much force it is required to brush it to when you're doing that every morning or when you're putting on contact lenses. So these are things. These are simple, simple experiments. And we have instrument manufacturers pretty much bring in their tools every conference for exhibition, sometimes even in the fall meeting. So we can have some kind of workshop in collaboration with these instrument manufacturers, have students come in there, or how much cheese it takes to different cheeses? What is the hardness of different cheese, these things like that. So that will be a fun, cool experiment that we do with high school seniors. We have done this in the past, and we can include undergrads and graduate students, and then just have people have fun, talk to everyone, and build friendship and connection, just as mentioned. So yeah, and our best part is the poster sessions, which is pretty much intimidating in the beginning when you're standing there by a poster and have have everyone come in and talk about it. But interestingly, Andrew and I, first time we even met there, we had our posters side by side, which we forgot for quite some time. And then we remembered, oh yeah, we did this. So I think that would be a good option to do increase our outreach and connection with other students. Yeah, absolutely, I definitely like the idea of the workshop. It sounds quite engaging. And I feel like.

Unknown Speaker  15:00  
STLE could even start with, like, really young children just at schools, being like, what is tripology, touching a bit of cheese and seeing how it reacts and so on. So it's quite a fun way to engage with students, definitely. And what do you guys think about, for example, the different scholarships, like, have you had a chance of, like, applying for a scholarship for the STLE? Or have you heard about someone using the scholarship provided by STLE. I want to say I think I applied for one when I was a grad student. I didn't get it, but I honestly didn't even know St le had scholarships to hand out to begin with. My professor told me, Oh, here's a scholarship. You should apply for us through STLE. But I feel like STLE could maybe advertise that more saying, like, here's a list of scars, or even, like, I don't know if there's a student page on the STLE website. Maybe can navigate through better, because I know there's different tabs, but I think maybe like, a student tab or just something, let students know what else STLE can offer for them, I think would be beneficial, especially when it comes to the scholarships, because this can be very helpful. You also have to let the advisors and the PIs know about that, because they're the ones with the financial incentive to send their students to STLE on a reduced budget. So, yeah, I don't know. also let me know about some scholarships, and I applied to a local chapter scholarship. I know not every local chapter has that kind of thing. But that can be really helpful, and it can help make an ST le annual meeting more affordable for a student. I've also advised an undergrad student who won the boozer scholarship, I think two years ago, Daniel del Gandhi, and that also helped him attend St le and present his research and meet future collaborators, potentially. Yeah, it's, I think, really important to have scholarships to help students make it to the conference, because that's where a lot of the good work starts to occur. And also it's so important to provide not just a financial incentive, but also inspiration for undergrads who are like, Oh, apologies. You know this field that I have potential in and that will welcome me, but that also is really interesting. And all the reasons that we love tribology, I wonder if the scholarships we have this idiosyncrasy in Britain, you'll be shocked to hear that where tribology is sort of in parallel, happens with the STLE, which is the mechanical engineering one sort of professional accreditation body, and the Institute physics, which is self explanatory. And I think there's one more as well, possibly the EDT Engineering Development Trust or the IET. There are lots, and they don't talk to each other, and they all have their own little tribology thing. And as silly feels like it could come to the UK and and say, here's this opportunity that we provide. It's in America, but it could also be a force to unify those because ultimately it is something that is dedicated to tribology, which everybody in the UK is already super involved in. And there are lots of potential solutions to this, this strange segregation in in the UK, but I'm sure other countries have their analogy to this. And already a silly is is well positioned and starting to do that particular unification. So the scholarships would help draw a new generation of philologists into that as well. I feel, yeah, so I did not even know about the scholarship. Still, I pretty much graduated. That's when I met an undergrad who had received the student local section of the scholarship. So again, I do agree that we need to make the PIs more aware and advertise the opportunity that the scholarships exist for students to apply for it, and then maybe have some like of a kind of a mentoring sessions in our annual meetings, like, hey, students come in. This is how you can prepare your application packet. This is how you make your application stronger. And I'm pretty sure we can. We have mentors in the community who would be willing to help our new students about it. The best thing is, like St specifically has this, I think Jeannie Mac Elroy scholarship is specifically for women, which is very important to help out young women topologists to upcoming specifically for them, and they have one separately for the Graduate Scholarship and one for the undergrad. So I think that is a excellent opportunity that we already have. We just need to advertise it a little bit.

Unknown Speaker  19:15  
Parker, this is maybe a little bit tying back to the previous topic, but like when I hear about this workshop idea, or, like mentorship, or another thing that it might be useful to do is, like research skills, how to present a good poster, how to present a professional scientific talk, how to ask a question in a session in a way that you want to embarrass yourself and you can be heard, and so on. These kinds of things, I think make for the best networking because it provides an activity and that lets people kind of build their experience and their community with each other based on an activity. That's not just okay go in a room and make friends. So that kind of thing serves an educational purpose.

Unknown Speaker  20:00  
Maybe serves the purpose of democratizing access to these scholarships, which are really important, but also help students get to know one another in an organic way. I definitely agree with Parker. I think, like, for example, last year, when we did tribal link in Birmingham, we had one of the workshops was about competency. So it was like one of our sponsors was giving a talk about like finding the right competencies when applying for jobs. And that actually initiated a huge discussion in between, like people, because they were just talking after the workshop, and they were like, Oh, I can feel like I found like this skill and like this situation, this skill in that situation. So kind of promoting these kind of workshops through the STLE would be super useful and, well, that's what we're trying to do. Like in the UK, I don't know how the US chapters are, but like in the Student Chapter, like we're trying to kind of involve these kind of workshops as well so that people can kind of talk to each other and, you know, develop new skills and stuff. So yeah, definitely, I suppose, one really key ingredient of an event that really brings people together who are the type of people who are maybe PhD students or aspiring is a bit different to a normal networking event. For me, I want an ability to be technically excited about something, or technically shine in some way of a present or hear a presentation, or, you know, get engaged, often a taboo at dinner parties. And I also want a way to have those conversations with other people and eat cake with them and have a discussion about that company's workshop was amazing, actually, with that guy, because what happened was the playing field in the room sort of was totally level, and we were all just like, Okay, I have a vested interest. All of us will be interested in this. Let's have a productive discussion about it. But it was in the context of loads of technical stuff, loads of social stuff, and there being very little social pressure. And that was just really, really nice. But I think it's quite a rare event that has all of those constituents, maybe a student led student only poster session the night before the main conference starts, could be an opportunity for that. There should be cake too. Yes, with cake, obviously.

Unknown Speaker  22:13  
But yeah, definitely, I feel like more kind of student focused sessions during the conferences, or like just individual workshops, like, organized by the chapters, the local chapters, could engage students more, and also, like, increase the awareness of these scholarships available. Because, from what you have said, guys, even like, in the US, like, you haven't heard about the scholarship, so increasing that awareness to like, pi students and all of that like, that's what the STLE should be doing. And then I think one last question before we finish, where do you guys see yourself in STLE in the future, and maybe, who has inspired you to keep going forward in STLE? That's a tough question for me. Throughout my career, I've had great mentors, Paul Michael, Ashley martini, Peter Lee, Carlos Sanchez, they've all been great mentors involved in STLE, in kind of guiding me through my journey in tribology, I would say I would see myself possible, trying to be a chair of a committee, continue to present the research that we do here.

Unknown Speaker  23:10  
We get the most interesting projects that come through. It's never the same. And teaching, I've been going to a lot of the technical classes. I don't know what they're called, but you basically learn about a certain topic within tribology, and it's a whole day class that STLE offers. And those have been really entertaining and engaging. And honestly, I've learned a lot through those classes I wouldn't have learned through any of my engineering classes, or even experience wise, you know, they have all these professionals talking about their experience in this section, so I don't know see myself teaching one of those classes. I think would be fun.

Unknown Speaker  23:45  
Yeah, for me, I would see myself as, like, be more involved, like in committee meetings, or, like, the new panel we had this year, women in Tribology. We had a panel that was amazing. So in panels like that, or start some new initiatives, like we discussed today with the student workshops, or something, just student only poster session with cake and wine the day before the actual poster session, something like that. And former mentors who inspired me is there are quite a few. Actually, it's not one person being the solution to everything. So some of them are like Cora. She was in this role the time right now. She's amazing. Everyone pretty much knows her in the tribology, there is one more person, Arian. She is based of France. I get to meet her every year, and she was, again, a very big inspiration during completing my dissertation, when my anxiety levels were very high towards the end. Am I doing to try to not came in like, Nope, you're doing a good job. Just believe in yourself and keep moving forward. So that is what I see myself becoming to the this current generation of students in the future. That's amazing. Alex, I think silly is also provided a platform to meet lots of inspiring people and.

Unknown Speaker  25:00  
And yourselves, very much among them. And Carlos and Andrew from Surrey have been just really awesome to follow over the years and listen to in their talks. And I think also, yeah, some of the mentors that I have really benefited from, ironically, have been people who there should be other chances for me to meet them, but there haven't been so Matt Smith, it's difficult to get Hugh spikes in a social mood, except that sort of thing. And it's so much about the context, isn't it about the what someone feels at liberty to share with you, and the environment they're in an Scally provided that for me, I also think Rob Karpik has been a massive part of my academic development. I don't know if he knows that, but he has the good

Unknown Speaker  25:45  
I obviously, without meeting him through Parker, that would not have happened. So I feel like I owe a lot to us, clearly, in terms of the people that have been there and been there to support me professionally, I've made some some fantastic connections the good people at falex and PCs and optimal, and actually companies that, as topologists, we sort of engage with, but you get to meet the people who designed the machines that you spend your life using, and have those little discussions that otherwise they just wouldn't be a platform for. And obviously, in the case of PCs instruments, yeah, as of very recently, I started working here. I'm absolutely loving it, but it's a fantastic team and really, really awesome work. So again, silly has a big part to play in that brilliant Parker. Yeah. So the people who inspire me? Well, I mean, there's so many people, it would be impossible to name them all, but for today, I want to highlight the undergraduate educators who come to scle and present the work of their undergraduate students or bring their undergrads with them.

Unknown Speaker  26:50  
You know, I'm especially close to Megan Alinsky and Harmon car a at Hope College and Gonzaga University, respectively. And they've brought undergrad students before, and I know there are many, many others who have done the same. That's where I really see myself in the future, is trying to teach younger students and help them develop as tribologists and as people who can really contribute to the sustainability challenges that the world faces. Absolutely amazing. All right, so I would like to thank you very much to all of our speakers and STLE for inviting us to participate in this podcast. I think we managed to get a great discussion about the STLE support to students and all sorts of things. If you would like to learn more about the scholarships offered by the STLE, please visit St website@std.org

Unknown Speaker  27:44  
I would like to invite all of you based in the UK, Europe and in America to the STLE UK student chapters conference called tribal link in November this year in Leeds. So we are welcoming early career researchers, so PhD students and early career researchers abstract submissions until the third of October, so make sure to submit yours. And thank you very much for chipping in. And yeah, thanks everyone. Thank you. Thank you for joining us on this episode of perfecting motion. Brought to you by the Society of tribologists and lubrication engineers, the premier technical society serving the tribology and lubrication industry. STLE's mission is to advance the science of tribology and the practice of lubrication engineering in order to foster innovation, improve performance of equipment and products, conserve resources and protect the environment. STLE supports its members with a variety of technical educational and professional development resources and programs to learn more about STL E, please visit our website, www.STLE.org .