Andrea Grant

xagrant@yahoo.com

Research Experience

• Staff Scientist, Mount Washington Observatory, 2003
  • Oversee routine operation and conduc periodic maintenance of state-of-the-art air quality monitoring instrumentation on the summit of Mt. Washington as part of the AIRMAP project. Perform data analysis and assist in interpreting air quality data in conjunction with meteorological observations and analyses.
• Observer, Mount Washington Observatory, 2002-2003
  • Observe and encode hourly METAR and six-hourly synoptic weather observations. Generate local forecasts and disseminate on several live and prerecorded radio shows daily. Act as liaison for IT work, solving problems internally and through contractors. Maintain and repair equipment as necessary. Train and supervise interns.
• Science Technician, Raytheon Polar Services Corporation, South Pole, Antarctica, 2000-2001
  • Responsible for running six experiments in remote environment. Performed daily checks of equipment and data transfers to home institutions. Troubleshot and repaired any malfunctions in computer software/hardware and experiments' instrumentation. Worked in extreme conditions and weather and relative isolation, with limited resources. Assisted meteorology department in making observations and repairing equipment. Responsible for maintenance and calibration of blood analyzer in medical facility.
    
• Research Assistant, Materials Science Department, University of Minnesota, 1998-2000
  • Developed instrumentation to improve flux measurements in Molecular Beam Epitaxy. Designed and constructed interferometer which successfully measured micro-Torr pressure changes. Pursuant to future interferometer developments, conducted experiments in fracture and cleavage in silicon, and in growth of Distributed Bragg Reflectors. Coded ray tracing program in c and investigated thermally induced deformation of silicon via finite element modeling. Administrator for all lab Windows NT computers.
• Development Engineer, QualiTau, Inc., 1996-1998
  • Developing semiconductor reliability test instrumentation: designed and debugged analog and digital circuitry; designed multiple printed circuit board layouts to meet specifications of sub-pA resolution in current measurements; developed and coded low level drivers to control data acquisition and calibrate system; coded in-house testing and debugging program for hardware setup and troubleshooting; supplied documentation of circuitry developed; involved in vertical integration of product--prototype through initial manufacturing; hired, trained and supervised interns.
• Research Assistant, Underwater Acoustics Group, 1993-1996
  • Designed, built, and hard-wired several specialized, tuned pre-amplifiers, assisted in hard-wiring of pseudo random m-sequence generator. Coded specialized data collections programs in C and analysis programs in idl. Constructed data analysis templates in Excel, Axum. Analyzed data for chaotic patterns and turbulence. Involved in all aspects of research--physical and theoretical limitations of our technique, data collection and reduction techniques, general project development.
• Intern, Computational Physics Department, Ford Motor Company, 1995
  • Fit experimental data to phenomenological model of a sensor, using chi^2 fit integrated in FORTRAN code, on an Open VMS Digital workstation. Obtained parameters for a variety of experimental conditions. Explored changes in model to improve fit with data.
• Solid Waste Program Assistant, Thurston County Public Works Department, 1992
  • Researched and wrote feasibility reports on pyrolysis and landfill methane recovery. Created a public education brochure comparing costs and environmental impacts of cloth versus disposable diapers.

Publications

• Grant, Andrea. "Women in Science: An Exploration of Barriers." Berkeley Scientific, Fall 1997
  • Investigation into reasons women disproportionately tend to leave science, and gender-specific problems we encounter in our careers. Includes results from informal survey conducted of approximately 50 women scientist and engineers.
• Paper presented at Ocean Sciences Meeting, American Geophysical Union, February, 1996
  • Results from prototype underwater acoustic current meter installed at 3-Mile Slough in the Sacramento River Delta. Comparison made with existing USGS program to monitor the total discharge from the California Central Valley. Includes wavelet analysis of data used to locate boat wakes.
• Technical Report, Ford Motor Company, August, 1995
  • Detailed results of data fitting, applications of parameters to other research projects, alterations made to sensor model.

Skills

Education

• M.S., Materials Science, University of Minnesota, May, 2002

  
  Relevant coursework:

  Introduction to Materials Science Fracture of Brittle Solids Ceramics Semiconductor Device Fabrication

  Solid State Physics I and II Transmission Electron Microscopy I and II Semiconductor Devices I and II Fourier Optics



• B.S., Physics, cum laude, San Francisco State University, May, 1996

  
  Relevant coursework:

  Semiconductor Devices  Electricity and Magnetism I and II  Digital Electronics  Modern Physics I and II  Analog Electronics  Quantum Mechanics I and II

  Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics  Analytical Mechanics I and II  General Chemistry  Vector Calculus  Differential Equations/Linear Algebra  Project Lab--independent research projects

Awards

• Physics Department Honored Graduating Student, 1996
• Physics and Astronomy Club Undergraduate Research Scholarship, 1996

xagrant@yahoo.com. Last updated 4 September 2003