Introduction: A Little Bit About Me

Hi everyone!

I'm Seerat Jajj, a senior at BASIS Scottsdale High School, and welcome to my first post. I'm very excited to share my project with you and what I will be researching for the next few months.

Earlier this year, I was accepted into ASU’s research program for high school students called Science and Engineering Experience (SCENE) where I am placed under Dr. Shane Underwood in the Civil Engineering Department. With the help of his graduate student Akshay Gundla, I am studying the multi-scale mechanistic modeling of asphalt concrete, using MALDI (Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization) imaging technology, which characterizes the shape of asphalt. Specifically, MALDI-TOF MS, which stands for Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry. 

By researching the different modeling of asphalt, it is possible to benefit long-term sustainability of the roads, which would inevitably bring down the taxes that are used to finance construction of pavements. And I know we all want lower taxes! Although this technology can be used in the engineering field, MALDI imaging is also used for tissue and other single-celled organisms to provide information about the spatial distribution of specific distribution.

However, civil engineering isn't the career I had planned out for me. After taking AP Psychology, I decided that I wanted to study biomedical engineering with an emphasis on neuroscience and become a physician, so researching civil engineering was the opposite of what I wanted to do. In order to learn more about my interests, I will also be incorporating a biological discipline by interacting with other biology professors at Arizona State University. I am researching how MALDI-TOF MS can be used to diagnose life-threatening diseases, analyze peptides and proteins, detection of biological warfare agents, and modeling asphalt.

Anyway, that's it for today! I can't wait to learn more about how to make roads!! 

Thanks for reading and see you soon!