What started off as a joke between two undergraduate physics students will soon culminate in an ambitious endeavor called Cycle for Science, a two-woman cycling and science education team that will traverse the U.S. starting April 17. Berkeley Lab research associate Rachel Woods-Robinson and science journalist Elizabeth Case will visit middle schools across the country, teaching fun science lessons and profiling science teachers, all while serving as female role models with the hope of attracting girls to science.
Woods-Robinson and Case met at UCLA and often joked when their physics classes got tough that they should just throw in the towel and bicycle across the country. But they finished their degrees, and Woods-Robinson joined Berkeley Lab as a research associate in the Materials Science Division last March. She’s been working on synthesis and characterization of p-type transparent conducting materials, which can be used in solar cells and optoelectronics. Case is a science journalist in Davis who plans to start her PhD in engineering in the fall.
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Nearly a decade ago, a meeting to explore research collaborations between the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee set the foundation for a company that provides accessible and remote health screenings for patients concerned about diabetic related eye diseases.
That start-up company—launched as AMDx, then called Hubble Telemedical—has been acquired by Welch Allyn, a major medical diagnostic devices manufacturing company that plans to bring the ORNL-UT breakthrough to many more patients.
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