my brat summer: research at penn

Let’s rewind to June 7th, 2024. While my hands were covered by 3 layers of gloves, I set the timer to 60, beginning a new sample. Little did I know, as I slowly drop casted chemicals, a wave of chartreuse hit the internet, and brat summer was born.

Exactly one week after I started my summer research experience via the VIPER (Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research) program at Penn, Charli XCX’s popgirl summer album took over my spotify by storm. My guess? My brat summer began there – a hugely fun and rewarding twelve weeks of research filled with new experiences like never before.

Being able to work with the frontier of knowledge and instrumentation is one of my favorite aspects of my research experience. My lab project, for example, works with quantum dots – the technology that won the 2023 nobel prize in chemistry. So I, with my samples in hand, tinkered with advanced scientific tools through Penn’s Singh Center for Nanotechnology, an advanced institute for fabrication and characterization at the nanoscale. Jumping headfirst into such specialized tools and knowledge areas can be daunting: yet, my fear that I might say something stupid quickly dissipated within my first week. I found my lab peers to be unbelievably supportive, helping me train on instruments and procedures. With Lana del Rey in my airpods, I familiarized myself —and applied my skills to contribute to— the world-class labs which reside on Penn campus.

However, while my discovery lies at the boundaries of science, the research community at Penn is not at all cornered within STEM fields. In fact, this was far from the case: dinnertime talk talk between friends who stayed on campus revealed to me the full multidisciplinary scale of knowledge acquisition. From medicine to math to design to marketing to philosophy, the diverse, vibrant interests of the Penn community remain ever-the-clearer.

My summer experience left me with still much more to explore: and thankfully, much like brat, research at Penn is not at all limited to the summer. With my back to back enrollment in MSE 0099: Independent Study and application to a CURF research grant, I delve deeper into my project as the semester progresses.

This 365 party girl lives on.

- Tony T.