Kat is an expert on the electron microprobe, or electron probe micro analyzer (EPMA), an instrument that is widely used by both geoscientists and materials scientists.
“I’m mapping where the elements are in the sample. When it’s done, it looks like an electron image, but it’s not. It’s quantitative data as to the distribution of elements in a material,” she says.
Kat’s goal in coming to Penn State and joining the Materials Characterization Laboratory was to bring the EPMA technique back to the material sciences.
