The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the School of Graduate Studies is delighted to showcase the accomplishments of our current students and program alumni. For this December 2022 SPOTLIGHT feature, we are excited to showcase RISE and SUPER-GRAD fellow alum, Dr. Lorne S.Joseph.
Read below to find out more about Dr Joseph. Thank you Dr. Joseph for sharing your experiences with the SGS community!
What is your current title?
Director of Engineering and STEM Research Initiatives
What Rutgers School of Graduate Studies (SGS) program(s) did you participate in and when?
RISE 2016, SUPER GRAD Fellow 2017-2018
What department did you work in and who was your mentor?
Materials Science and Engineering, Lisa C. Klein, PhD
What was the title of your project?
Phenyl Modified Phosphosilicate Gels for Proton Conductivity
When did you graduate?
Defended June 2022; Graduation October 2022
What accomplishments would you like to share? What have you been up to since you completed the program?
Since completing RISE in 2016, I started graduate school at Rutgers in the department of Materials Science and Engineering in the Fall of 2017. I worked under the guidance and direction of my RISE mentor, Dr. Lisa C. Klein. In our lab, we work on materials that are made using the sol-gel process. During my time as a graduate student, I worked on Phenyl Modified Phosphosilicate Gels for Proton Conductivity as well as some other sol-gel related projects. I successfully defended my dissertation in June of this year and one week later, I started my career journey to becoming a Higher Ed Administrator. I am currently the Director of Engineering and STEM Research Initiatives at Douglass Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) part of Douglass Residential College. I am excited to help create, facilitate and contribute to STEM opportunities and programming for our dynamic Douglass WiSE students. Recent Publications: Annerino, A., Narvaez, K., Joseph, L., Klein, L. C., & Gouma, P. I. (2022). Evaluating melting gel coatings for wearable metabolic sensors. Smart Health, 100337. Joseph, L., Tumuluri, A., & Klein, L. C. (2022). Progress in proton conducting sol-gel glasses. Journal of Sol-Gel Science and Technology, 102(3), 482-492.
What advice would you give to someone interested in following a similar path as yours?
My advice to someone who is interested in following a similar path as me would be: Even though, this journey is scary (it seems so at the onset) and uncertain (there will be many of those moments), be scared and do it anyway. It is so rewarding once you make it to the other side.
Any thing else you want to share?
Graduate school, especially in research is a big commitment, take some time to really decide if it is what you want to pursue. Always have a “why?”. Your “why?” will be your anchor when things aren’t going so great.
