Dmitrijs Gurkins, junior

From: Riga, Latvia

Exploring: Physics

The right attitude: When I visited Lewis & Clark, it felt like the right place for me: I had lunch with some students, and we talked about politics, science, social issues—people even left the table and came back with research to support their arguments! I thought if I were part of that, I would get a great education. Lewis & Clark has definitely lived up to that first impression.

Hands-on learning: I like to work with my hands, so I want to become a mechanical engineer. The logical step would have been to go to a big engineering school, but here I’ve had the opportunity to work side by side with my professors on research that will be published in a major journal. I think that would have been more difficult to accomplish at a big school.

The art of science: When my brain can’t take any more computation, I head over to the ceramics studio. Often I’ll be working on an art piece, and the solution to a physics problem will come to me in a flash.

Laying down the law: For a recent art project, I decided to spell out Newton’s second law of motion in gigantic ceramic letters. Part of the fun was in calculating the optimal size for each letter, taking into account the thermal expansion and contraction of the clay and the constraints of the kiln. I installed the finished piece in the hallway of the Olin Center for Physics and Chemistry to make sure students would always have to walk by Newton’s law.

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