David Sanches Email & Phone Number

During my time at Virginia Tech, I focused on academics and excelling in design projects, such as the Aesthetic Wind Turbine designed my freshman year and during my senior year, focusing much of my effort on my senior design project to use friction stir deposition (FSD) to reinforce an aluminum matrix with amorphous metal. These projects have proven to be the intersection between my desire to learn difficult engineering topics and concepts and then apply them in new and useful ways.I likewise pursued an internship at Entegris, Inc. where I was given my first research and development task. There I learned an incredible amount about analytical equipment for trace level contaminants and ultra high purity gasses. The experience was overall extremely informative and also supremely exciting - this opportunity again proved to be the intersection of my desire to learn about complicated subjects and topics, and my desire to solve problems critically and analytically. Having received a project that in practice proved to be larger and grander than the internship period also whetted my appetite for development and engineering tasks that are grand in scope and far reaching in implementation.On a more personal note, my dreams and my passion rest in the nuclear industry. I have been fascinated, interested, and curious about nuclear sciences since I was in middle school and since then I have structured my academics and extracurricular activities around finding a way to make meaningful contributions to the industry as a whole. My dream is to help advance and develop fission technology towards widespread acceptance and implementation. I celebrate the work already done in this avenue, and look to the work to be done excitedly as I search for my place to contribute to such a great and promising technology.Outside of the classroom I have thoroughly enjoyed both the oceanside mountains of California as well as the densely forested mountains of the Appalachian region of Virginia. I love to spend my free time outdoors hiking and rock climbing, and take a vested interest in the health and well being of the environment around me. I can enjoy it, and I hope the generations to come get to as well.