USM Student Compares Notes with National Laboratory
Corinne Watson, a senior from the Aroostook County town of
Smyrna majoring electrical engineering at USM, traveled to
Los Angeles in January to compare notes with engineers there
on improving the characteristics of chip inductors manufactured
by MilSpec Magnetics. MilSpec is a contractor for Sandia National
Laboratory, a government owned/contractor operated facility
in Albuquerque, N.M. Through collaborations with industry,
government agencies, and universities, Sandia has been developing
technology solutions to national and global problems since
1949, through a full range of national security R&D projects.
In the summer of 2002, Watson worked on an independent study
project under the direction of USM Department of Engineering
Chair Jim Smith. During the course of this study she met Adjunct
Professor James V. Masi, who spent several years developing
a "magnetic" polymer which has possible uses in MilSpec's
chip inductor design. Watson has been testing the properties
of Masi's polymer at USM and the trip to Los Angeles was to
compare her results using MilSpec's equipment. She hopes to
return to MilSpec during school breaks and is currently being
considered for an internship at Sandia's Albuquerque headquarters
during the coming summer.
Masi is a Professor Emeritus at Western New England College
in Springfield in addition to his teaching and mentoring at
USM. He has a national and international reputation in magnetics,
electromagnetics, and materials modification, and holds over
60 patents in areas ranging from semiconductors and communications
to polymers and rehabilitation devices. Masi says of Watson:
"Corinne is an industrious and talented young engineer with
an eagerness to learn and a sense of how to learn and retain
new things. The fact that she is a self-starter and had previous
instrumentation experience at Verizon led Dr. Smith and me
to choose her for the project."
Watson enrolled at USM after her 1996 graduation from Southern
Aroostook Community High School. She took a leave from USM
to work as a technician with Verizon Communications where
her mother is a line worker. Upon returning to USM in the
spring of 2002, she declared her major in electrical engineering,
the fifteen year-old program housed in the John Mitchell Center
on the Gorham campus.
Watson says of USM, "I have been continually enjoying my
challenging classes here, as well as experiencing great opportunities."
Watson says she finds nothing unusual about the field of engineering
for women, although she acknowledged she is certainly in the
minority. Undaunted, however, she appears to be in her element.
She expects to complete her degree in December of 2003, and
has plans to be married during the summer of 2004.
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