{"id":67,"date":"2023-09-24T23:54:50","date_gmt":"2023-09-24T23:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/?page_id=67"},"modified":"2024-06-08T16:55:44","modified_gmt":"2024-06-08T16:55:44","slug":"my-research-background","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/index.php\/my-research-background\/","title":{"rendered":"my research background"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">my research background<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>I sometimes find it hard to describe my research in a nutshell, as I\u2019m drawn to different academic fields. I tend to look at research questions through different disciplinary perspectives and love exploring resonances across those boundaries. I feel this helps me make better sense of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My research interests are shaped by my lived experience, and often emerge from serendipitous encounters and some accidental rabbit holes, some of which quickly become obsessions! I draw inspiration from several people, places and things in my life- my family, my late\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/pdf\/23768999.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A2cf35c339efa6c4bf2adedd5586a821a&amp;ab_segments=&amp;origin=&amp;initiator=&amp;acceptTC=1\">father\u2019s work<\/a>\u00a0on epistemology, Akan indigenous knowledge and pedagogies. I find I learn so much from trying to see the world through my children\u2019s eyes&#8230; if that&#8217;s possible&#8230; I\u2019m especially inspired by their art, they teach me a lot by what they make with random things and stuff\u2026 Like this portrait of Tortoise in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZzXyIk7ekD8&amp;t=70s\">Tinga Tinga Tales<\/a> by my then three-year old\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/IMG_20200603_103304-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-34\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/IMG_20200603_103304-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/IMG_20200603_103304-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/IMG_20200603_103304-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/IMG_20200603_103304-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/IMG_20200603_103304-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I am a keen microscopist, and love working with X-ray tomography to observe and map material change both spatially and temporally, in three-dimensional space and at different length scales. I look for clues and explore the stories that the inner worlds of materials can tell us about how they have lived their lives. You can find examples of this in papers&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s11664-016-4519-0\">here<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1111\/jmi.12803\">here<\/a>. I have specific expertise in developing and deploying multimodal materials characterisation workflows to integrate stories about the same material told by different probing methods. I am excited by how this approach often expands meaning and facilitates emergence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"489\" src=\"https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Picture1-1024x489.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-228\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Picture1-1024x489.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Picture1-300x143.jpg 300w, https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Picture1-768x367.jpg 768w, https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Picture1-1536x734.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Picture1-2048x978.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">some materials i\u2019ve worked on\u2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In no particular order\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>thermoplastic elastomer gels, synthetic marble, power plant steel pipe welds, shaped-metal-deposited aerospace alloys, solder alloys, power electronics interconnect materials like sintered nano-silver, ultrasonically bonded aluminium and copper interconnects, sound, and of course, paper (one of my favorites)\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>my research background I sometimes find it hard to describe my research in a nutshell, as I\u2019m drawn to different academic fields. I tend to look at research questions through different disciplinary perspectives and love exploring resonances across those boundaries. I feel this helps me make better sense of the world. My research interests are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-67","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":307,"href":"https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/67\/revisions\/307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pearlagyakwa.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}