“No one grew up wanting to be a metrologist,” says Ed Morse, director of the Center for Precision Metrology. In his decades-long experience in metrology, or the science of measurement, Morse has determined that very few high schoolers, when asked about their dream job, are likely to respond “measurement scientist!”
Then how does UNC Charlotte have such a deep bench of experienced research metrologists and driven metrology students? Because the top academic center for metrology research in the western hemisphere is at Charlotte: The Center for Precision Metrology.
Three engineering Ph.D. students who are specializing in metrology explain how they came to share the dream of being measurement scientists. Jorian Khan is in his first year of graduate school; Rehab Khattab is in her third year; and Jesse Redford is in his final year.
Q: For students who haven’t yet discovered measurement science, why is metrology so important?
Jesse: Metrology is one of those things that people don’t appreciate enough. We just expect at this point that our phones and cars are going to fit together and function properly. As consumers, we’ve gotten comfortable with the fact that things work. But to achieve all of that, there’s measurements that have to happen. We couldn’t make all the technology we use if we didn’t have the ability to measure it.
Rehab: The first week I worked here, I thought you could just take a tape measure and measure distances. Why do you need all of these expensive instruments to do it? But now I realize that sometimes, a small difference in measurement can cause a really huge impact. Like when you talk about a truck or an airplane, you have a lot of components. If you’re off by 10 microns [one-millionth of a meter; a human hair is about 100 microns] on each component, it can cause a lot of problems. So even one micron matters because one and one and one and one adds up over time.
“METROLOGY IS THE FOUNDATION THAT THE 21ST CENTURY PRODUCT IS BUILT ON.”
– Jesse Redford ’24
Q: How did you find yourself studying metrology at Charlotte?
Jesse: I was doing research in the Math Department as an undergrad when a professor at CPM put out a challenge: She had an algorithm for characterizing surface texture and wanted to speed it up. I rewrote it in another language and got the processing time down from around 15 seconds down to one second. That’s when we started talking. I found the world of surface metrology and ended up on a project. She’s now been my advisor for four years.
Jorian: I needed a machine shop to build parts for my hobbies. The company I worked for in L.A. let me use its warehouse, so I bought some machines and learned to use them. My first foray into metrology was machining parts that I needed and trying to measure those parts; then I started reading fundamental metrology texts. After going back and finishing college in Houston, I had several job offers, but my heart was in the machine shop and in metrology. And when you search ‘metrology’ in the U.S., UNC Charlotte is the place to go.
Rehab: Out of undergrad in Cairo, I was accepted to the UNC Charlotte engineering program, but I was delayed because of COVID, and couldn’t make it work. Finally I just flew here and visited the department. One of the professors said ‘Stop by CPM and to learn about their research opportunities.’ So I did and asked Ed Morse if he needed any new students. He said ‘Do you want to work in metrology?’ I said, ‘Yes, sure,’ even though I had no idea what it was. I’ve been working on my project for two years now, and it’s great.
Q: What ignited your passion for metrology?
Jorian: When I started building espresso machines, I realized that what I really love is the machine shop and asking questions that a metrologist would ask, like if my machine is at the right temperature or how much does pressure matter. What fundamentally drives me is playing in the lab or the machine shop and working on interesting things. When I finished undergrad, that was my main deciding factor — I could take an engineering job, but I wouldn’t get to tinker every day. When I was thinking about what to do next, I was really looking for a place to tinker and play with ideas around metrology, measurement and machining.
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