These "___ of SGM" threads are really taking off, so I thought I'd make one I think it'd be cool to hear about the professions of SGM. What do you do, what are you currently working on, what accomplishments have you achieved. Teach us something. A few I have in mind: Chemists: @HelixSpiral @Robokiller87 Soldiers: @Lemon @Rozboon Engineers (Mechanical, Social): @PanzerShrimp @Serpentine Misc: @Milo (zookeeper) And of course anyone else who wants to give a little (or a lot) insight into what it is they do
What do I do? As a soon to be undergraduate with a bachelor's degree in chemistry the world is my oyster in terms of what I could do in the future. Plans are to work as an analytical chemist which works with a variety of instrumentation that identifies molecules in unknown compositions. What am I currently doing? I am currently working on identifying the thermodynamic explanations behind why we observe retention times for specific molecules going through a C8 stationary phase using a 10:90 methanol:water mobile phase (which means we are working in the reverse phase. Nonpolar stationary phase, polar mobile phase) using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). In commoner's terms: Why does a molecule go through a special, widely used commercial column faster than another? What do I hope to accomplish? I hope I graduate in 2 weeks. Seems extremely likely. Teach you something. If you want to learn something come back to me when you know about Gibbs Free Energy, Entropy, Enthalpy, and Intermolecular Forces.
I'm curious in this actually. What type of work are you doing to add to what is already known about the properties of diffusion? Especially when related to thermodynamic properties as the reaction has typically occurred before it is even added to the column. Isn't already pretty well described that the reason retention times vary is due to their charge- giving those intermolecular forces to occur between C8 causing the molecules to "drag" as they go through the column? Similar to TLC chromotagraphy where you run different solvents down the layer to resolve different compounds- but if you were to stick to the same solvent it would eventually run down. Then also of course- size differences of molecules just to navigate through the column. I'm very interested in what you're working on and what other understanding you're bringing- and I do know all those terms.
YO! I'm a college dropout that's lucky enough to have gained experience to get where I'm at. I started running a 3-axis CNC machine with a 75 horsepower drive. Spoiler: pic of it This thing is nuts. It'll push a 1" drill at 40" per minute through steel. I excelled at running it. I was the fastest operator, and while at first I made a few mistakes, I learned from them and gained a shit load of knowledge on every material except depleted uranium (Carbon steel, chrome, brass, hastelloy, inconel, nickel). I can mill/drill/turn it all. I ran that machine for 3 years before they moved me to Drafting. In drafting I used SolidWorks and AutoCAD to produce drawings for all of our products. I honestly didn't like this job too much, but then again I'm thankful for the experience I gained from it, because without it I wouldn't be a: CNC Programmer. Combined with AutoCAD and Solidworks, I now use MasterCAM to write programs for all parts in the shop. I'm the only one that does this out of 170 employees. I take Engineering's drawings and produce my own linework to draw out all parts. I use my knowledge from running the machine to read the code and make sure it's going to do what I tell it to do. I program all the proper feed rates according to material, thicknesses, and tool size. It's pretty much natural to me now. I know to always program a 0.759" drill to go 2560RPM and 41IPM in Carbon steel, and run the same drill 1000RPM and 7IPM in stainless steel. This data is easy to understand for you guys, but I talk in terms of Surface-feet per minute (SFM) and inches/rev (IPR). Every material must be machined a certain way to maximize tool life $$$$$$ and production speed. You're pushing these tools which are effected by heat, vibration, and chipload and pretty much use the laws of physics in your favor. I also order all the tooling, and work on special stuff like this: Spoiler: Replacement part for a Lathe here We've got a bunch of old ass machines (50's, 60's) from companies that went bankrupt years ago. So sometimes we need to reverse engineer parts and put simply, solve problems on our own accord. I really like my current job, and I'm taking shit to the next level on how we order and produce parts. I've changed the process from ordering full round plate, which needs to be stacked, drilled, trimmed, laid out with a marker, and cut with a torch. Now, I just order what we need from a laser cutting business, which eliminates trimmed, laid out with a marker, and cut with a torch. We now save a lot more on material and labor by ordering our parts pretty much done. Spoiler: Material saving example 4x8' sheet Here's a drill bit: Spoiler: drill bit I bet you're wondering how the fuck they managed to drill a spiral hole! Well, they start with a solid bar, drill two coolant holes in it, then twist the piss out of it. After that they just machine the features around the twisted holes. So yeah, that's what I do.
Add a category of Health Care Professionals to your list @Python~ Then some subcategories. -Registered Nurse here. (3rd year student). I'm currently working as an employed student nurse in a small semi-rural hospital. @MangoTango
Electrical Engineer (although my PhD work is basically in biomedical) I'm currently creating a new form of mathematical transformation that makes it easier for nanomachines to interpret the fluid dynamics of the human circulatory system. Otherwise my specialties are in digital logic and embedded systems- e.g. forcing disparate electronic parts to play nice together.
To actually answer the questions: What do I do? I'm a molecular biologist that works in microbiology lab. Our lab focuses our work on oxidative stress, looking at a specific compound built with sulfhydral groups (typically written as R-SH, which mean (Anything) attached to a sulfur+hydrogen compound). The reason we're interested in this is because when the mammalian host immune system, more specifically humans, attacks a bacterial cell they ingulf a bacteria and release a whole bunch of superoxide stressors to kill the cell. A prime example of an oxidative stressor that everyone is familiar with would probably be hydrogen peroxide. My organisms in focus are currently methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA - I'm sure @The Law is familiar with it ) which is a antibiotic resistant strain of bacteria that can lead to most commonly staph infections, but also other life threatening diseases, Mycobacterium smegmatis, which is a model organism for the bacteria that causes TB, and syneochococcus elongates, a fresh-water cyanobacteria that uses photosynthesis as it's energy source. In my daily work I try different experiments to better understand that pathway that the bacteria handles these stressors. Without getting in to the nitty-gritty of the experiments, I'll just say it includes analytical chem (same as which Robo mentioned above), molecular genetics/genetic engineering, and biochemistry. What am I currently doing? I'm preparing to start graduate school and wrapping up a few papers. I have two publications currently, one first author. Currently have another first author publication that's almost in wraps, and I have about 3-4 other publications that just need small experiments/results here and there. What do I hope to accomplish? Once I'm finish with graduate school I'd like to teach while working in labs. I once threw around the idea of running my own lab but I quickly realized that meant it spent more time writing, writing grant reports, etc. I actually like to have my hands in the experiments and work at the bench. Teach you something: As you saw above, one of my research topics is MRSA. This is an extremely resilient bacteria that is resistant to most of the common antibiotics we have available for humans. We are in this age where we are running out of antibiotics to use against our bacterial diseases. When we think about evolution we typically think of something that takes thousands of generations, and thousands of years to proliferate. However, some bacteria, MRSA included, can go through several generations in the timespan of an hour. This means evolution occurs much more rapidly, and if an antibiotic is being used as a selection pressure, then resistance is going to be the outcome. For example: Your doctor gives you a two week prescription of antibiotics. You feel better by day 4 though, so you stop taking them. However, you feel better because you have a decreased amount of bacteria in your body- not an absolute clearing of the infection. So- now the bacteria that are left behind have been exposed to this antibiotic selection pressure and some may have evolved to withstand the antibiotic. Since you stopped taking it, they have the chance to flourish in your body again, you spread the bacteria, and now we have new antibiotic resistant strains. In fact, as recently as last year I think we had a species of Klebsiella pneumonia in a woman from Nevada that was resistant to all available antibiotics. This is just one example of antibiotic abuse. When your doctor doesn't want to give you antibiotics for a virus, some parents beg and beg until their doctor gives in. This is antibiotic abuse. We use a LARGE amount of antibiotics in a farming industry as a preventative measure to maintain livestock rather-whether there is an infection or not. This is antibiotic abuse. We've created a very large problem for ourselves which hell, yeah it's job security for me, but with the recent politicalcizing of science and the defunding- it makes me scared for my future.
I don't really do anything special, best way to show what I do is with videos. In about a month I'll be here Doing this And this is my regiment doing their things Simply put, I blow shit up and build things.
That's exactly what my uncle was doing in the U.S. Air Force before getting promoted to his current role. Though it's unfortunately where he met his wife .
We're relating retention to change in temperature and we're seeing how an analyte's retention changes with a change in temperature. As expected, higher temperature normally means faster retention and vice versa. However, using the retention factor we're able to relate this to Gibbs Free Energy, Ethalpy, and what we call "entropy" or S-star which includes the volume phase ratio that I unfortunately could not determine if it was constant throughout my research due to time constraints. In any case, doing a van't Hoff analysis would allow us to determine that any changes in S-star would be due to strictly entropy if the volume phase ratio was constant. So then we collect enthalpy from slope, S-star from the intercept, and compare it to Gibbs Free Energy. More negative = more favorable. A more negative enthalpy means more retention because enthalpy is the strength of the interactions the analyte has with the stationary and mobile phase. S-star relates to how the system rearranges itself to induce these interactions. A less negative S-star or a more positive S-star is more favorable. So we can reason that a slower retention is what it is because Enthalpy plays a big role since it's so negative, or S-star is so positive compared to a less negative enthalpy and that's why retention took so long. Or both can play a role in why an analyte's retention was so fast or long. There were two other types of analysis i was gonna do but time didnt let me also we're working on the extreme end of the mobile phase spectrum so it's not a fun place to be for research but it's a less explored area for us to do work in
Very cool! If you ever get a publication from this, or your PI, let me know. I'd be very interested in reading it and maybe even applying some of the applications to my work. I've never considered the change of IMF due to temperature- but it absolutely makes sense on why it would occur. We actually use a column heater to assure temperature is constant for our samples- we have a sample that we're having difficulty separating though so you may have some insights that are applicable to us. Our current method with dealing with differentiating varying level of charges is by running a gradient between our mobile phases rather than just doing an isocratic flow. Never even considered dealing with temperature.
Not really a profession but I guess it works. I'm a manager at a McDonalds Franchise in Arizona. I'm the Night Shift manager so I'm always getting chipped out on for people and time. I know not much to say but hey, I get paid so I'm not gonna complain
I am a nurse. So far my work has mostly been taking care of the elderly and people with disabilities.
