Shaping Childhood Fascination into Research Innovation

When she was a kid, Amelia Lipcsei loved building with Legos. The blocks offered endless possibilities for building better and cooler things and instilled an endless fascination with learning and creating.  

Now a second-year mechanical engineering and aerospace science and engineering double major at the University of California, Davis, Lipcsei is applying that endless fascination to the building blocks of her future. She’s posing the questions: what research can she participate in and how can her research be applied to other engineering fields? 

She is already participating in some research initiatives: Deviating a little from her mechanical and aerospace path, she works with Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Materials Science and Engineering Subhash Risbud to investigate silica aerogels, which are used as thermal insulators.

“I really want to help make the mechanical properties of them a little bit better,” said Lipcsei. “The reason why [the aerogels] haven't really been used in cars or things like that is because they are just so fragile.”

To reinforce them, Lipcsei injected carbon nanoparticles into the silica-based aerogels and let them absorb the carbon to enforce the properties. She then took the aerogels and put them in a scanning electron microscope, or SEM, to test the structural and mechanical properties of them. The results were not what she hoped for.

“Maybe 20% of the carbon went into it, and in order for me to actually test the structural properties and the mechanical properties of it, I wanted to get at least 80% of the carbon into the aerogel,” said Lipcsei. “Then we started brainstorming other ways that we could do it.”

She then decided to add heat to the aerogels and create a sandwich with the nanoparticles in between them, which was the best solution. This resulted in much more favorable results.

“When I got the SEM results back, 80% of it was able to be absorbed into it,” said Lipcsei. “Now to more of the testing stages of the actual mechanical properties of the aerogels.”

Now that she has a taste for research, Lipcsei feels that nudge of curiosity and eagerness to learn something new — for instance, testing materials’ mechanical properties, which is directly applicable to her major and interests in environmental issues and building a better public transportation system. 

“I'm hoping that after I graduate, I can focus my efforts a lot on improving public transportation, especially making it more efficient, maybe designing trains and buses that are much more fuel-friendly and are actually accessible to people,” said Lipcsei. “I think that improving stuff like that is integral to ensuring a successful future society where the environment is taken care of.”

For Lipcsei, the research opportunities are not unlike the Legos from when she was a kid. Each new research venture, like the different Lego bricks, offers her an opportunity to dream big and build something new.