Lab Work Paving Path to PhD

Benjamin G. Lee, 25, is a doctoral candidate in applied physics at Harvard University doing research that could help save lives during a chemical weapons attack. Here are excerpts from a conversation with Lee about life as a PhD candidate:

How long will it take to get your PhD?

Usually a PhD is six years or so. Most of that time is spent doing research.

How did you decide what to research for your doctoral project?

Students spend a lot of time figuring out what they want to do. You come in with a general idea of what you want to do, say biophysics or some sort of chemistry, but not really specific projects. To a certain extent, specific projects are things that professors have going on. You usually don't really make up your own project.

How did you get interested in physics?

I read too much sci-fi when I was young.

What are you researching?

I'm working on, essentially, doing chemical detection in fluids with lasers.

And the importance of that would be . . . ?

We're getting funding for doing this as something that would help in the case of a terrorist attack.

You mean if someone dumped toxic chemicals in the water supply, this would help identify them?

Yes, if you wanted to check something like that. . . . You can still do that now, in the sense that you can take a sample of that liquid, take the sample back to a big lab and check it a few days later. But that's not immediate. And in this situation, you'd want to know quickly.

Your project sounds like it would be a big advancement.

Yes.

Hurry up.

I'm in lab right now. Don't worry.

What will you do with your degree?

I might go back to Canada. There's a lot of science that goes on in Canada. I like it there. It's my home. . . . But there's plenty of opportunity in the U.S., too. I'll see.