Amy
Lam Beierholm,
a graduate student in Aeronautics, works in the T5 Hypersonic
Shock Tunnel Lab. The facility uses a free piston to compress a
driver gas in a shock tube. The reflected shock at the end of
the shock tube leaves a high stagnation enthalpy and pressure
gas which is then expanded through a nozzle to produce
hypersonic flow. Her work investigates transition in the
hypersonic boundary layer on a slender cone. Born and raised in
Vancouver, Canada, she has also lived in Macau, Japan, and
S.Korea. She speaks Japanese and French well enough to get into
trouble, but not much more. Before coming to Caltech, she
earned a B.Eng. in mechanical engineering from McGill
University. She enjoys scrapbooking and practising yoga (or
pilates).
Harmony Gates, a
graduate student in Chemical Engineering, works for Dr. Rick Flagan
and Dr. John Seinfeld on the measurement and study of aerosols.
Every summer the research group takes instruments and loads them
onto a Twin Otter airplane, where they sample aerosols as the plane
flies below, through, and above clouds and pollution plumes. In
Summer 2006 the group was deployed in the Houston, Texas and in
Summer 2007 will be in Monterey, California. Currently she is
working on constructing a new classifier with the plan to test it in
the upcoming summer field mission to compare it to the robust,
classic instrument that it someday might replace. Born and raised
in Southern California, she attended University of California,
Irvine where she earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering with a
specialization in Biochemical Engineering. She is active in many of
the Women’s Center’s programs, participates in the Vagina
Monologues, and is also active in the GSC. She enjoys playing
sports, which includes participating in the Caltech Women’s Ultimate
Frisbee team, playing co-ed slow-pitch softball with a Caltech team
in the JPL-Caltech league, and in June 2006 ran her first Marathon
in San Diego California.
