A few days until I leave!

I will be in Sevilla, Spain, this (academic) year doing chemistry research on a Fulbright grant, and you can check this blog throughout the year to see what I'm up to. I leave in just a few days and am so excited!

First I'll have Fulbright orientation in Madrid, for all the American grantees - both researchers and teaching assistants - and then I'll be going to Sevilla and finding an apartment, hopefully sharing with other students. Then I'll start research with my group! at Universidad Pablo de Olavide.

This group does computational chemistry research on materials structured on the nano level that have all kinds of applications. For example, they use computer simulations to investigate how such materials can act as "sieves" to separate gases from a mixture. Their work is very related to the research I did at Carleton on zeolites - which are one of the materials that the group at UPO investigates.

I'll join in one or some of the group's projects, basically as a PhD student researcher. I'll have minimal oversight from anyone so I'm looking forward to doing kind of whatever I want!

This year I'm looking forward to getting research experience in an area that I'm excited about, and seeing how research and universities work in Spain. I spent a summer in Oviedo (in northern Spain) in high school and loved it, so I'm excited to be a Spaniard again for a year. I'm also hoping to travel a lot. I can't think of another way I'd rather spend this year!