mtobah@umich.edu Ph.D. Pre-Candidate, Materials Science and Engineering Academic Training: B.S. (2020), Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign   Short Bio: I grew up in northern Virginia, close to Washington D.C. I decided to study and really came to enjoy the field of Materials Science and Engineering While at UIUC, I was able to work on computational materials science research using density functional theory to study the electronic properties of materials Over one summer, I had the opportunity to work at the Tokyo Institute of Technology on an experimental research project based on fabricating thin films for MRAM devices I hope to combine both computational and experimental methods into my work to further study interesting materials properties Research Experience: I have experience working with computational materials science methods, such as density functional theory, as well as experimental work with physical vapor deposition techniques such as vacuum thermal evaporation and sputtering. I have also worked with some materials characterization techniques, such as SEM and XRD.