Amanda Ready Email & Phone Number

For the past twelve years, I have been assisting in scientific research at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, first in the Department of Chemistry and later in the Department of Physics.I love research, but that wasn’t always the case. I started out in research as an intern in the Organosilicon Research Center. The beginning of my internship was, frankly, incredibly boring; I was mostly cleaning Pyrex equipment, which felt no different than doing the dishes at home. I was irritated because I felt I wasn’t doing anything meaningful in terms of contributions to the research we were doing. About a month into what I was sure was going to be the dullest summer ever, I had an epiphany moment. If no one cleaned the equipment, eventually the science we were doing would come to a screeching halt. Every task, no matter how big or small, is vital to the endeavors of research. As such, each task is important, even the parts of research we do not think of as being ‘real’ science. If someone has to do it, why not me? Eventually, the chemistry internship did have me doing compound synthesis instead of just dishes. And while I am no longer involved in the work done at the Organosilicon Research Center, the valuable lesson I learned there and the love of research that lesson imparted on me has stayed with me as I have continued in my career as a physics research assistant at the Wisconsin Plasma Physics Laboratory.