My ideal career will focus on development and application of cutting-edge scientific equipment. This broad description includes improving existing manufacturing equipment to increase process efficiency, working with an instrument company to develop the next product line, or providing customer support in the field for training and troubleshooting.During my PhD, I designed, built, and implemented a microscopy platform capable of robust, simultaneous characterization (optical, chemical, and topographic) of thin film materials at the diffraction limit of light (~300nm) and below (~10nm). The instrument combines tuning fork atomic force microscopy (AFM) with Raman spectroscopy using a nanostructured gold tip. Laser light focused on the tip creates an intense electromagnetic field that enables chemical surface imaging via near-field vibrational spectroscopy (tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy). Carefully designed experiments on the microscope led to the first publication of our lab, which focused on the role of phase segregation and charge transfer states in polymer semiconductor-fullerene solar cell films. Development of the near-field microscope was a multidisciplinary work involving optics, electronics, precision machining, and programming, as well as working with vendors for custom hardware acquisition.