Personal Information:
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Date of Birth: none (it's a long story) Email: Alternate Homepage: http://nano.psu.edu/~mjs Educational Background: (2000 to 2004) B.A. in Physics from Cornell University. If you really want to know how one gets a B.A. in Physics while someone gets a B.S. in Hotel Administration, ask Cornell about their college system. Current Education: (2004 to present) Graduate program in Physics at "The" Pennsylvania State University, though you wouldn't know it from my research. |
Words of Amusement: Oh,
where to begin... (In the interests of space, let's only use quotes
relevant to graduate school.
Unattributed quotes are anonymous.)
Duration:
"I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer."
Professorial Requests: 'You want us to do
WHAT?'
- Ancient
Chinese wall engineer
Writing
Papers: "The Lord's Prayer is 66 words, the Gettysburg Address is 286
words, and there are 1,322 words in
the Declaration of Independence. Yet, government
regulations on the sale of cabbage total 26,911 words."
-David
McIntosh
Inspiration: "All scientific discoveries are first recorded on napkins
or tablecloths. Engineering advances are
drawn inside
matchbook covers. Keep supplies of them handy at all times."
Scientific Perspective: "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch,
you must first create the universe."
-Carl Sagan
Scientific Progress: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by
convincing its opponents and making them
see the light, but
rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation
grows up that is
familiar with it."
-Max
Planck
Problem
Solving: "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is
simple, neat, and wrong."
-Henry L.
Mencken
Computer
Programming: "A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any
invention in human
history--with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila."
-Mitch
Ratliffe
Serendipity: "Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to
do doesn't mean it's useless."
-Thomas
Edison
Fellow
Graduate Students: "The difference between genius and stupidity is that
genius has its limits..."
Education: "It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent
of your own ignorance."
-Thomas
Sowell
Interpreting Data: "The difference between fact and fiction? Fiction
has to make sense."
-Tom
Clancy
Why Grad
School Takes So Long: "I have plenty of talent and vision...I just
don't give a damn."
Alternative Activities (you
know, for the 3 hours I'm not working):
Martial
arts (karate seriously, dabbles of others)
Parkour
(If you've not heard of it, I suggest a Google video search)
Humor
Writing
Entrepreneurial stuff (launching
businesses, getting patents, that sort of thing)
Poker
(nothing serious though, I'm not a big gambler)
Research
My research is currently focused on the
development of biologically functional surfaces capable
of selectively capturing
neurotransmitter-related proteins, with a particular focus on the
monoamine
neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and
dopamine. This would be used for functional proteomics of
the brain and selection of molecular
binding partners such as aptamers. The latter would be
incorporated
into a device capable of in vivo sensing
of neurotransmitter levels at spatial and temporal resolutions
at
least two orders of magnitude better
than the state-of-the-art devices and with very high selectivity.
Publications:
1. Microcontact insertion printing. T. J. Mullen, C. Srinivasan, J. N. Hohman, S. D. Gillmor, M. J. Shuster, M. W. Horn, A. M. Andrews and P. S. Weiss, Applied Physics Letters, 90:063114-063117 (2007) (ABSTRACT or PDF).
