QUEST: Science and Nature

In 2013, Jessica Mong arrived in the Bay Area with $100 in her pocket and a desire to enter the field of software engineering. Fast forward two years, and Jessica is now a software engineer with SurveyMonkey, a tech company that creates and designs custom online surveys. Jessica works on the billing side, writing code to ensure that customers can access and pay for surveys. Growing up in Nigeria, Jessica excelled at science and math. She received a scholarship to attend college in the United States at Claflin University in South Carolina to study computer engineering. When she started applying for software engineering jobs, she realized she lacked hands-on software engineering experience. She made the decision to attend Hackbright Academy, a software engineering school for women in San Francisco. Not only was she able to broaden her programming skillset, but she was able to make connections with other people in her field. "I don't know where I'd be without mentors who supported me," says Jessica. Her advice to others interested in becoming a software engineer? Build a network and don't get discouraged.

From robotic surgeries to driverless cars, as technology advances, robots are able to peform all different kinds of tasks. This means they could put some people out of work.

Structural engineering is a specialized branch of civil engineering that entails analyzing and designing structures -- things like buildings, bridges and even concert stages. Engineering is a big discipline that involves a systematic approach to designing solutions to problems experienced in the real world. There are many different fields of engineering, like mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, civil engineering, chemical engineering and systems engineering. And within these categories there are various subcategories-- and structural engineering is a subcategory of civil engineering.

For almost half a decade, engineers have come to the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) Center to better understand how structures respond to the complex and destructive forces of an earthquake. Engineers can’t just wait around for the next earthquake to hit. Instead, they simulate earthquakes on a 20-foot by 20-foot, 100,000-pound, reinforced concrete shaking table.

Growing up in a small town in New Mexico, Elisa Quintana didn't even think about science. She grew up in a household that did not stress the importance of math and science. It was not until community college that she realized she liked math, and ended up transferring to the University of California, San Diego to pursue a degree in physics.

Researchers at NASA Ames and the University of California, Berkeley are designing what may be the next generation of space exploring robots. These robots are a type of structure known as a tensegrity structure. In tensegrity structures, rigid elements are not directly connected to one another by bolts or screws, and instead are connected by wires, cables, chains or a similiar string-like object. In this video, CaT Bobino explains how you can make a model of a tensegrity structure out of just straws and rubber bands. Share what you make with @KQEDedspace on twitter or instagram using #tensegrity.

Alice Agogino's lab at the University of California, Berkeley and Vytas SunSpiral's team at the Dynamic Tensegrity Robotics Lab at NASA Ames Research Center are developing what could be the next generation of space exploring robots. And these robots are inspired by a baby toy of all things.

Researchers at NASA Ames and the University of California, Berkeley are designing what may be the next generation of space exploring robots. These robots are a type of structure known as a tensegrity structure. In tensegrity structures, rigid elements are not directly connected to one another by bolts or screws, and instead are connected by wires, cables, chains or a similiar string-like object. In this video, CaT Bobino explains how you can make a model of a tensegrity structure out of just straws and rubber bands. Share what you make with @KQEDedspace on twitter or instagram using #tensegrity.

Hyper-realistic video games. They're made using a technique called 3-D mapping. In the real world, 3-D mapping indoors is much more difficult than 3-D mapping outdoors. The solution? A 3D mapping backpack.

Alex Okita teaches computers to see like we see. He designs and develops tools and games for the Structure Sensor, an attachment for the iPad that can 3-D scan rooms, objects, and even people.

In 7th grade, after reading a newspaper article about female engineers at NASA, Maria Bualat knew that was what she wanted to do when she grew up. Fast forward to today, and now Maria is a robotics engineer at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA where she develops robotics systems for space exploration. Her main project at the moment is Astrobee-- a free flying robot for the International Space Station. It’ll help astronauts in the space station and measure the quality of the air there. As the deputy group lead for the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA Ames, she does the high level thinking, and mostly works on project management and systems engineering. This means she sets the goals and direction of the project and coordinates with different teams and engineers to make sure the project is successful. To get here, she earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, and was hired right out of school. She continued her education and earned a master’s degree also in electrical engineering with an emphasis in controls while simultaneously working at NASA. For students interested in a career in science or engineering, she recommends cultivating good communication and writing skills.

Amy Pickering is an environmental health engineer and works as a research associate at Stanford University in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and at the Woods Institute for the Environment. She combines social science, microbiology and engineering to study ways people in low-income countries can access safer water and better sanitation. People living in the developing world are often exposed to higher levels of bacteria and other germs, usually because of contaminated water and poor sanitation conditions. Pickering tries to reduce the spread of disease by travelling to areas with poor water quality and studying why people are getting sick and coming up with low-cost and low-tech solutions that can help minimize illnesses. She also runs research studies to test and evaluate how effective various interventions are at preventing the spread of disease. Pickering spends about 20% of her time in the countries in which she works and the rest at Stanford. Pickering has an undergraduate degree in biological and environmental engineering from Cornell University and a masters in environmental engineering with an emphasis on water quality from University of California, Berkeley. She completed a Ph.D in the Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources at Stanford University. This career spotlight video is featured in our Engineering Is: Cleaning Poop from Drinking Water e-book. The e-book explores the science and engineering principles behind one of Amy Pickering's projects-- a device that purifies drinking water in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The e-book includes videos, interactives and media making opportunities. You can find our other e-books at http://kqed.org/ebooks.

Poop contains a lot of interesting stuff, including all kinds of microbes. Learn what these microbes do and how they can spread disease.

Here in the US, we take clean drinking water for granted. In many parts of the world, however, modern water treatment simply doesn't exist. This creates a major problem -- poop in the drinking water! Amy Pickering, a Stanford engineer, went to Dhaka, Bangladesh to observe how the residents collected water. The challenge? Build a simple, cheap device so that residents can easily collect clean drinking water.

Elijah Martin is a second year graduate student in the Developmental and Stem Cell Biology program at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He works in the laboratory of Dr. Deepak Srivastava at the Gladstone Institutes where he studies how the heart forms to try to understand causes of heart disease in order to develop therapies. In the lab, Martin grows heart cells in petri dishes, which involves mixing together different chemicals and nutrients to get the cells to grow and develop into a heart. He also uses microscopes to track the growth of the cells. Since he was a young child he has wanted to study the heart, and going to graduate school can help turn his dream into a career.

Manu Prakash, a bioengineer at Stanford University, has created a fully functional microscope out of waterproof paper that uses teeny tiny lenses to magnify objects. He calls it a Foldscope. The different parts of the microscope are printed on paper, which the user punches out and folds together. The Foldscope requires no power outlets and works with standard microscope slides. The Foldscope operates a lot like a traditional microscope in that it uses lenses to bend light in order to make tiny images appear larger. Watch the video to learn more.

Manu Prakash and his lab at Stanford University have designed an origami based paper microscope, called a Foldscope. The microscope is printed on waterproof paper. The user punches out the pieces and folds them together to create a fully functional microscope. It works with standard microscope slides and requires no external power to operate. You simply hold the Foldscope up to a light source (like the sun) and look through the salt grain-sized lens to view the sample on the slide. The high curvature of the tiny lenses used in the Foldscope allows small objects to be highly magnified. This little invention costs less than a dollar to produce and could have major implications for global health and for science education.

Quantum physics, Einstein’s theory of relativity and atomic clocks that are accurate to one billionth of a second -- all of these are crucial in allowing your smartphone to pinpoint your precise location almost anywhere on Earth. It's called the Global Positioning System, or GPS. The GPS receiver in your smartphone uses trilateration — a more complex version of triangulation — to determine its position on Earth. In drawings, trilateration is often illustrated in 2-D using circles. But since GPS deals with satellites and Earth in the real 3-D world, spheres are a better representation of what’s actually happening.

Meet Dr. Vi Rapp. She is a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and focuses her research on improving combustion and combustion systems. As part of her job she is working on designing a cleaner, more efficient cookstove. This Career Spotlight video is part of our Engineering Is: Saving the World with Cookstoves e-book, which tells the story of how Professor Ashok Gadgil and his team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory designed a cookstove to help internally displaced persons in Darfur. The e-book includes videos, interactives and text that explore the science and engineering principles behind this project. Find all of our e-books @ kqed.org/ebooks.

Women living in the refugee camps of Darfur, Sudan must walk for up to seven hours to collect firewood for cooking, putting them at risk for violent attacks. Alternately, they must sell precious food for fuel. But researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have engineered a more efficient wood-stove, which is greatly reducing the women's need for firewood and the threats against them. This video is part of a series, Engineering Is Saving the World with Cookstoves. Find all of our e-books at kqed.org/ebooks.

What is combustion? What happens when wood burns? Learn about the chemistry of combustion in this animated explainer. This Science Spotlight video is part of our Engineering Is: Saving the World with Cookstoves e-book, and is a companion to our Darfur Stoves Project video. The e-book tells the story of how Professor Ashok Gadgil and his team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory designed a cookstove to help internally displaced persons in Darfur. They are now working on designing a new wood-burning stove to reduce indoor air pollution. The e-book includes videos, interactives and media making opportunities that explore the science and engineering principles behind this project.

Boyle’s Law describes the relationship between pressure and volume of a gas. Matt Wandell, a biologist at the California Academy of Sciences, demonstrates Boyle’s Law by placing a balloon in a small decompression chamber to simulate what happens to a fish’s swim bladder at different pressures. A swim bladder is a gas-filled organ in fish that helps them maintain their buoyancy. An animation in the video reveals how the gases inside the balloon behave in response to pressure change. This Science Spotlight is a companion video to Bringing Fish Up from the Deep and is part of our Engineering Is: Bringing Fish Up from the Deep e-book. The e-book explores the science and engineering principles behind the California Academy of Sciences’ portable decompression chamber, and includes videos, interactives and media making opportunities. You can find our other e-books at kqed.org/ebooks.

Matt Wandell is a biologist at the Steinhart Aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences. His work involves feeding the animals, cleaning the tanks and making sure everything in the aquarium stays healthy. Wandell also participates in research expeditions to survey and help restore coral reefs and collect organisms. He was a key scientists in developing a portable decompression chamber for fish that allows divers to safely transport fish from deep in the ocean's twilight zone up to the surface. Getting paid for what he loves to do, he says, makes this his dream job. This video is part of our Engineering Is: Bringing Fish Up from the Deep e-book. The e-book explores the science and engineering principles behind the California Academy of Sciences’ portable decompression chamber, and includes videos, interactives and media making opportunities. Stay tuned for its release in early April. You can find our other e-books at kqed.org/ebooks.

Fish that live in the twilight zone region of the ocean are a crucial part of a vastly under-studied ecosystem. When fish are brought up to the surface for study, the change in pressure between their native depth (200-500 feet) and sea level often causes fatal damages to their anatomy. Watch how a team of scientists from the California Academy of Sciences designs and builds a portable chamber that creates a pressure-controlled environment for these animals, so they can safely transport them from the twilight zone to the aquarium. This video is part of our Engineering Is: Bringing Fish Up from the Deep e-book. The e-book explores the science and engineering principles behind the California Academy of Sciences’ portable decompression chamber, and includes videos, interactives and media making opportunities. You can find our other e-books at kqed.org/ebooks.

An earthquake generates a series of seismic waves that travel through the interior or near the surface of the Earth. There are 4 types of seismic waves.

California and Arizona share the Mojave Desert, one of the world’s best locations for solar installations. As California rushes to fulfill a mandate to produce on-third of its electricity from renewable energy, the largest solar thermal plant in the world opens, but only after a contentious process that pitted environmentalists against each other.

When the ribbon was cut on the Rocky Branch project, the stream that flowed through the heart of North Carolina State University was restored, but the university was transformed. Thirty years ago, Rocky Branch was given the dubious distinction of being the “most polluted stream” in the state of North Carolina. Today, it’s a model of restoration practices for the region. Before the restoration, the rain that fell during storms was considered a problem. Watch as a university rises to the challenge of caring for the water that cycles through campus.

Meet the underwater characters that make a living cycling nutrients through the watershed. Learn how the physical, chemical, and biological systems within watersheds work together to create a continuum of resilient, interconnected ecosystems. Watch the food chains spiral nutrients in and out of the river basin in vast web of interactions.

The oceans cover 70 percent of Earth’s surface, they drive global climate and are critical to life on the continents. And yet they are some of the most mysterious and little known places on our planet. But one of the most ambitious ocean research projects ever undertaken is meant to change that.

In Washington state, a river once known for its abundant salmon run is getting a second chance. The Elwha River dams, which decimated salmon populations and profoundly altered the ecosystem, are coming down and hopes are high that salmon will return.

A recent scientific study shows sea otter activity off the coast of Washington State has removed CO2 from the atmosphere equivalent to taking up to 6 million cars off the road.

We journey to Washington State’s Cascade Mountains, where the return of wolves could have a profound impact on this vast wilderness area. We meet up with biologist Aaron Wirsing to explore why wolves and other top predators are needed for diverse ecosystems to flourish. Using a simple video camera (a “deer-cam”) Wirsing is gaining a unique perspective on predator/prey relationships.

In this short video, we travel with conservation biologist Dee Boersma to the Galapagos Islands where she works to support a population of temperate penguins that are being impacted by climate change.

Pteropods are free-floating marine snails that play a very big part in oceanic ecosystems. Although they are very small, these creatures are extremely important because they make up the base of the oceanic food web. Pteropods are good indicators of the health of an ecosystem. This slideshow is part of our Ocean Acidification Education series.

This lighthearted animation takes us beneath the surface to see groundwater in action. Watch anthropomorphized drops of groundwater travel through this system. A smiling character with a shovel digs us down to the water table, allowing us to flow through the water cycle and thus making the process much easier to understand.

In the search to replace fossil fuels with renewable power, wind energy has proven to be a valuable resource. But as we know, wind doesn’t blow everywhere all the time. To harness reliable, consistent wind energy scientists and engineers are now looking up to harness a new wind resource -- the high altitude jet stream.

Samuel Weatherwax is an insulation and coatings technician for Calpine Corporation’s geothermal power plant, The Geysers, northeast of San Francisco. Weatherwax started as an apprentice and has now worked at The Geysers for four years. He loves spending most of his workday outside, where he paints, pressure washes, sandblasts, and repairs Calpine’s 15 geothermal power plants. After graduating from high school Weatherwax worked several jobs before a friend helped him land a position at Bottle Rock Power Plant, which helped prepare him for his work at The Geysers.

Damon Vander Lind is a kite designer for Makani Power, a wind power generation company owned by Google. Vander Lind loved working in his dad’s shop as a kid, tinkering with boats and model gliders, which fueled his passion for design and engineering. After receiving an engineering degree from MIT, he thought he wanted to get a doctorate, but during his post-college internship at Makani he fell in love with the work and decided to stay. He now leads a team that is building high-altitude kites that can generate more power than conventional wind turbines. He says that while not all start-up projects succeed, it only takes one successful project to make a huge difference. He finds it extremely exciting to be a part of that process.

Aindrila Mukhopadhyay is a microbiologist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she investigates the most effective ways to use microbes to convert plants into biofuels. Mukhopadhyay leads a multidisciplinary team studying stress response in bacteria. Her work ranges from hands-on research to grant writing. As a student Mukhopadhyay was always passionate about science, and she went on to earn a doctorate in chemistry. Every day she celebrates “small victories” at work and enjoys improving biofuels that will power the cars of today and tomorrow.

Leila Madrone is a mechatronics engineer — a combination of electrical and mechanical engineering — who works at Otherlab, a San Francisco start-up company. She leads an engineering team that is trying to improve large solar power fields. By changing the size and materials of heliostats, structures that include large mirrors to reflect sunlight, she can make high-concentration solar systems more energy efficient and less costly. Madrone has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from MIT. Before she joined Otherlab she was part of the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA, where she created a device for taking high-resolution panoramic images. She chose to become an engineer because she wanted to help create a better world. She says that if you’re curious and have a desire to improve the world around you, you may enjoy a career as an engineer.