Exploring the inner workings of materials
Growing up in an “idyllic” area of farms and orchards in southern New Jersey, Krystyn Van Vliet had little exposure to science or technology. And yet, it was that very environment that she credits with kindling her interest in engineering.Van Vliet, awarded tenure this year as the Paul M. Cook Career Development Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Biological Engineering, says working on a farm during her summers in New Jersey is what initially sparked her interest. “Farmers are really creative engineers,” she explains: They rely on extremely complex machines, such as potato harvesters, and spend the off-season repairing them. In addition, she says, they are constantly dealing with experimental questions in biology — “questions like, how much nitrogen should there be in the soil for the pepper fruit to grow faster than the leaves?”Even though her farm jobs often involved the lowliest of tasks — “one of...