Happy Monday! We spent part of Saturday at my oldest kid’s dance recital. While I enjoyed the show, my third child thought it was a bit repetitive — a series of “teenagers in black dancing to sad songs” interspersed with “little girls in pink sparkles” hopping around to more upbeat…

Happy Monday! Sometime in childhood, I developed a phobia about fish. My folks used to take us “up north” in the summers to visit our grandparents, and we stayed in a cottage in the midst of national forest land. There were three small, inland lakes just down the road, and…

Happy Tuesday! Living with elementary schoolers means that I’m frequently reminded of the difference between theory and practice. For example, my youngest spent a fair amount of time learning about seasons this year in second grade, and has a pretty clear understanding of the differences between winter, spring, summer and…

Happy Monday! This morning, I stood in the front of 1345 EB and welcomed a new group of students to the EnSURE (Engineering Summer Undergraduate Research Experience) program. This is our first in-person offering since the pandemic began, and it was wonderful — and a little strange — to be…

Happy Monday! When I was a kid, our folks would take us to the public library every week and I’d check out 20 books at a time all summer long. The internet didn’t exist, and my family didn’t have cable TV, so our summer days were filled with a combination…

Happy Monday! When I was a grad student, I was lucky enough to have “Ann Arbor parents.” Martha and Jack were actually my cousins, but had retired from careers in engineering and were happy to “adopt” me when I moved to Ann Arbor to start a PhD program. I stayed…

Happy Monday Everyone! This week is another student takeover of Katy’s newsletter! I am Rahul Jain and I am a dual Ph.D student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering (CMSE). This newsletter is a part of an awesome project by Augusto Gil whom…

Happy Monday! I planted seeds this weekend. Those of you who have been reading along these hundred(!) weeks might remember that I’m an aspirational gardener, at best. I enjoy the process of researching seeds and tools and methods, and I have big dreams about picking flowers and veggies from my…

Happy Monday! My youngest kid came home Friday and announced that he wanted to participate in the science fair at his elementary school. He asked if I’d help him make a poster to submit, and commented that he was looking forward to the certificate and small prize all participants would…