2. Madeline Zhang - Catching Up on Time while Making Planes Quieter
We spoke about Madeline, or Maddy’s fascination with tinkering, and how that interest led to admission to the Engineering Science program. She sees education as eternal and as more than mathematical or scientific; it’s about “becoming a better human.” Her definition of research is unexpected- Maddy suggests that we’ve all been researchers since we were babies. After all, “curiosity is something everyone is born with,” and something that is satiated gradually as we learn (which leads to more questions). She also helpfully breaks down the main categories and types of research engineers typically engage in, and we discuss her research journey; from UTAT, Norway, and now the Netherlands! We also talked about what gets her through her through the hard times in research (and life); remembering that curiosity, friends, reading, the Richard Feynman poster on her wall, and focusing on what makes us human first.