My name is Violetta Rostobaya and I am a senior mechanical
engineering student at Mason. I have been working on material science project
under mentorship of Dr. Ali Beheshti and Dr. Shaghayegh Bagheri since Fall
2021. This research project became an
important step in my journey as an engineer and a researcher. I am very
grateful to both of my mentors and URSP program for the opportunity to
participate in undergraduate research and become an active member of Mason
engineering research community. My average day at a lab starts with preparing the polymer
material for extrusion. Sometimes depending on the method of manufacturing it
can take up to several days for the mixture to prepare before the extrusion.
This process is tedious and requires a lot of patience, precision as well as
lab equipment management skills, which I did not have at the start of this
project. This semester however I feel more confident and have clearer direction
of the project. After the material is extruded, the produced filament is used
to 3D print samples for compression and indentation testing.
My next steps are finishing up the production process and
testing the samples. The results of the tests will be summarized and analyzed
in a research paper. I hope to publish the paper in an academic journal and
launch my researcher career. I am planning to start my graduate school in Fall
2022, so I hope this work will provide me some recognition within scientific
community.
