For months prior to my Princetern­ship, I had been debat­ing which type of engi­neer­ing to
choose. I have always been inter­ested in the auto­mo­bile indus­try, and was con­sid­er­ing major­ing in chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing with a focus on fuels and alter­na­tive energy sources. Thus, the Princetern­ship with Exelus, Inc. was the per­fect oppor­tu­nity to learn more about chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing in fuel devel­op­ment. Com­ing into the Princetern­ship, I really did not know what to expect. I had never done any research—independent or guided—and I wasn’t sure where to draw the line between chemists and chem­i­cal engi­neers. I knew that Exelus, Inc. devel­oped cat­a­lysts and processes to cre­ate chem­i­cals for fuel syn­the­sis, but my expe­ri­ence work­ing with Prince­ton grad­u­ate Belinda Slak­man ‘10 showed me a snap­shot of the engi­neer­ing world, and how method­i­cal research is car­ried out.

The main project that I assisted with was styrene reac­tions in reac­tors and through gas chro­matog­ra­phy analy­sis. We pre­pared cat­a­lysts through metal exchanges and used these cat­a­lysts to prompt reac­tions with styrene. The end prod­uct of these reac­tions is used in mod­ern trans­porta­tion fuels. In addi­tion to per­form­ing styrene analy­sis, I also learned about data mod­el­ing through mass bal­anc­ing and reac­tion rate laws, chem­i­cal alky­la­tion, pho­to­catal­y­sis, and bio­mass fuels. It was amaz­ing how many sep­a­rate projects were all being researched and car­ried out at the same time within Exelus, Inc.

Fel­low Princetern Vin­cent, Belinda Slak­man, and Alexandra

The most valu­able point in this expe­ri­ence was learn­ing about the tran­si­tion from
uni­ver­sity to career, and how to apply knowl­edge from Prince­ton to the demands of the mod­ern work­place. Com­ing into this expe­ri­ence, I did not know what to expect regard­ing the actual research of chem­i­cal engi­neers, and now I have a much clearer idea of the type of career path I want to pur­sue. I would highly rec­om­mend the Princetern­ship pro­gram to any and all Prince­ton stu­dents who want to learn more about a field, and I would love to par­tic­i­pate in a sim­i­lar expe­ri­ence in the future.