Laurel Logan Email & Phone Number

Blacksburg, Virginia, United States

I worked as an undergraduate researcher in the STEP lab at Virginia Tech under supervision of a PhD student. My work was primarily to study contact inhibition of locomotion outcomes for cancer and noncancer cells on suspended nanofibers mimicking the native extracellular matrix to understand how cancer cells migrate through the body. The lab had contamination issues toward the end of the summer that prohibited us from running experiments, so I did jobs around the lab to improve things. I improved the lab’s data analysis accuracy and efficiency by creating and improving pre-existing MATLAB scripts which can be used for the majority of experiments. I also improved the fiber spinning technology to be able to create fibers with smaller diameters and fluorescence.

Virginia, United States

In summer 2019, I worked as a quality technician intern at Blue Ridge Optics. My primary task was to measure tilt and surface flatness in precise optics as they were being manufactured. This is done using an interferometer which I set up and calibrated for each measurement. I also cleaned and packaged completed lenses while inspecting for any new chips or cracks using a light microscope. If defects were found, I would analyze them using the interferometer to see if they still met the required surface quality.