Alumni Highlight

Conor Rowland

Since graduating from Cal Poly Pomona, I have moved to Eugene, Oregon to pursue a PhD in physics at the University of Oregon. I am still in my first year of studies as a graduate student, so I haven't become very involved in research yet. There are so many interesting research groups in the department that it is hard to decide on which group to join. At the moment, I am planning on either joining a group studying optics or biophysics. My motivation for joining one of these subfields mainly comes from my experience doing research under Dr. Ertan Salik at Cal Poly. I worked with an apparatus that fabricates tapered optical fibers (TOFs) and mainly focused on improving the sensitivity of the TOFs to changes in the refractive index of some solution. Though I was the one fabricating and improving these TOFs, I was exposed to the research conducted by biotechnology students working under Dr. Salik in using these TOFs as biosensors. Seeing first-hand the connections between physics (or more specifically optics) and biology was fascinating. 

I'll be sure sure to come back with an update about whichever research group I decide join in the future so that I can share my progress towards a PhD has been like. Cheers for now.