What I do:  My research focuses on developing nanostructured polymers for biomedical device applications. I use a variety of electron and optical microscopes to study these materials and have worked with high schools on remote-microscopy projects. What I like most about my job: What I like most about my job as an academic research scientist is that trying to understand how Nature works presents many interesting problems to solve and sometimes the solutions end up making things or doing things that help people.