Before starting my PhD at Texas A&M I worked for seven years at Mintek. The company is a research and development company in South Africa. The whole company does research in the fields of mining and metallurgy. I did two internships with the company during my undergraduate degree and then worked there after graduating. During the internships I worked in two different divisions, the first one focused on pyrometallurgy research. So this work focused on the extraction of metals from ores and refinement of these metals by the use of high temperatures. The second internship was in the Advanced Materials division doing basic research in nano-materials. So the second time was much more chemistry focused. I finally ended working in the Advanced Materials Division for the physical metallurgy group. So in all the time that I have been in the company I have been exposed to a large number of disciplines within the metallurgy or materials science field.
It's very easy for me to look back on the experiences that I have had at Mintek and think they are normal, however, the level of exposure that I have had to different fields is far greater than most other people have had. Mintek is still not perfect and there is definitely a tendency in the company for each division to focus on their specialization. Reflecting on this, there is definite room for improvement in terms of combining disciplines and improving the results from the projects by doing so, however, the exposure to different materials, different analysis techniques and different project types has greatly broadened my knowledge of materials science in general.
While working at Mintek I was trained on the use of the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and the x-ray Diffractometer (XRD). For a long period, I was one of the only people trained on the SEM and the only person trained on the XRD. As a result of this I did a large amount of analysis work for multiple people within the division. This gave me a wealth of experience, from analyzing corrosion failures, to catalysts, to nano-particles, and even some biological type samples. The interesting part in all of this, is that while all disciplines are looking at changing or improving on specific features of a material for the purpose that they are trying to achieve, it was easy to see that if it was viewed from the perspective that a material needed to be changed to achieve a goal, all the different disciplines were identical. I really enjoyed discussing the different applications, processes and techniques that were being used by different disciplines, and noticing the points of commonality, but also the differences. I think what made the most sense was that every now and then, it was possible for me to provide advice on something that I had never had proper experience with and help solve a problem just by offering a different perspective on the problem. Thinking back on this experience with a multi-disciplinary viewpoint, I can see exactly why dealing with problems with a multi-disciplinary approach is so powerful. Sometimes all you need is a different perspective in order to find the answer that has been sitting in front of you the whole time.
While completing my Ph.D. program I signed up to join the D3EM program that is run by several engineering departments at Texas A&M University. This program has an aim to equip students with more skills and knowledge relevant to Materials Informatics. The program required certain courses that expanded on the theory and application of Materials Informatics and Computational Materials Design, and this helped expand my understanding of the fundamental concepts that ultimately were implemented in the BAREFOOT Framework I developed through my Ph.D. What I personally found very enriching about this particular program was the additional functions that happened around the formal course work required by the program. These were the writing course, and the coffee sessions and other less formal meet-ups that were organized by the program. I am still using at least some of the methods, techniques and tools that were provided during the writing course to help improve my writing.
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