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After a bit of running around, I was able to finally track down a fun candidate for interviewing this week. Originally I was all set for an interview with my Differential Equations professor, Dr. Jordan. However, Harry, being the master interviewer, had already snatched him up. Fortunately for me, this led to the interview of one brilliant Dr. Renaud Puybaret.

Upon entering Dr. Puybaret’s office, it was clear he was a step ahead of the rest. His entire door was covered in papers. Entering his office was much the same, as his desk was crowded with more papers and as he turned to greet me, his face seemed like one in thought. On his computer were two open windows, almost identical, showing black backgrounds with slightly lighter dark circles in a pattern across the screen. These were apparently simulations of some Nano-sized photovoltaic cells he was designing.
As you may have guessed Dr. Puybaret is not American, but born and raised in France, earning his degrees in Toulouse. He attended the French University, ENSEEiHT, earning his Masters of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering degree. Our wonderful advertising people here at GTL sold Dr. Puybaret on Georgia Tech’s graduate program. Dr. Puybaret originally had a full job lined up with Airbus following his graduation. He attended a presentation given by Professor Bertrand Boussert about Georgia Tech. “We were college students and they were giving out free food, so of course we attended. Yet, after hearing about all the great things they were doing, my friend and I looked at each other and said, ‘Let’s do it’!”

That day, he received his contract from Airbus in the mail. His then professor Dr. Ougazzaden, and now current boss, called him just in time. “Had professor Ougazzaden called me an hour later, the contracts would have be signed and there would be no going back. But instead I decided to be poor and do science.” Despite already having a job already lined up, Dr. Puybaret always felt that having an American degree would be a great thing. Most companies have American offices, and he’d always wanted to go to America. The decision proved both intelligent and fruitful. He began his doctorate in 2009 and officially received his PhD in June 2015. Dr. Puybaret described, with a smile on his face, all the great times he had. “Half the time I spent in America, which was a very good experience. Half my time was in the School of Physics in Atlanta.”
Upon completion of his doctorate, he went through Georgia Tech’s Innovation Corporation, where his thesis for his PhD became the ground for his own Nanotech Company. Dr. Puybaret focuses on fabrication of devices of size 50 to 100nm. There are two categories in Nano Physics: which utilizes graphene, and Inorganic Photovoltaic, using indium gallium nitride. Working under Dr. Ougazzaden, Dr. Renaud Puybaret is a Post-doc creating a company to make LEDs out of the Nanotech developed in his Thesis. However, the brilliance doesn’t stop there — on top of running his own company, Dr. Puybaret is also a professor here at GTL. He teaches ECE 3040 (Microelectronics) teaching the basics of creating transistors and photovoltaic cells.
With amazing researchers and professors such as Dr. Puybaret, it is clear to see why the GTL campus is growing so much.

Today after what seems like an eternity, I finally sat down with Dr. Zaidi, my  Aerospace professor. I had been chasing this interview for quite some time, but every time something came up; either he was busy or I was. However, it was worth the wait.

Born in New York City, Dr. Zaidi like the rest of aerospace engineers, was destined for the field. We bonded over this during the interview discussing how in order to make it in this field, you have to know early on that this is what you want to do. Born to parents from Mumbai, India Dr. Zaidi would often fly home – what back then was not a nonstop flight, but a flight that was so long that they needed to stop and refuel somewhere in Europe each time.

This is where his passion came from. He told me, “I remember standing at the gate, my parents were in line, but I was glued to the window always looking at the plane. Back then it was the 747 – she was the Queen of the skies!” From this, he has gone on to build an entire profession and life around planes and aviation. Dr. Zaidi attended a vocational high school in NYC geared towards aviation. Before coming to Tech he interned with Delta doing aircraft maintenance.

Four years as a Yellow Jacket saw him earning his undergrad and set out for the world. Unfortunately, just as he graduated the economy tanked, making industry jobs much harder to come by. With an attractive offer from Tech’s graduate school, the professor was born. Six years later, Dr. Zaidi had his Masters and PhD. While in grad school a friend tipped him onto CETL, the Center of Enhancement for Teaching and Learning. Simply put, the center focuses on improving teachers’ teaching. “Taking the courses in undergrad I saw how there were a number of ways to improve the courses. The curriculum can be very difficult, and I wanted to do a better job at teaching than I had seen.” This what brought him to Georgia Tech-Lorraine.

And of course, two AE’s couldn’t be in a room without a little plane talk. So as the interview concluded Dr. Zaidi gave me some advice and an inside scoop on planes today. During Graduate school, his focus was on jet propulsion and he interned with Rolls Royce. Because this is a field quite similar to one I wish to go into, Dr. Zaidi explained to me, just like in lecture, how now is a great time to be an aerospace engineer. Modern day jets are reaching the plateau of the “S Curve” (graph depicting the efficiency of the engine), meaning that the normal turbines cannot be made more efficient. Instead companies are now shifting to new designs, different engines altogether, and all in all, truly amazing stuff. The current paradigm shift is very exciting for budding Aerospace engineers, and the field as a whole.

A true role model and great teacher Dr. Zaidi will no doubt go on to better our rep of Aerospace faculty at Georgia Tech.

Posted by James

“I can believe I ruined this break,” I thought to myself as I rolled out of bed Thursday morning.

I reach over for my phone and see its 2 pm, the memories of yesterday’s travels start to fill my head. The all-day travel, routing on train after train, then eventually a plane to end all the worrying. Followed by one last train and finally a bus. The monotony of the travel was only interrupted by my vomiting and constant sickness. Yet, as the saying goes, there is a silver lining to every dark cloud, even here.
Now that some time has passed and the wounds are less sore, I see that my break may not have been normal or even “fun” at times, but it sure makes a great story.

As Thursday, Oct. 21st rolled around, the homework and tests had piled up and eventually subsided, but they left a toll, a wanting to be free of school life for a change. We left for the east right on noon. and six or seven trains and 18 hours later, we resurfaced to see the beautiful Czech Republic. Prague, our main destination, bore our company for two days and two nights.

The city’s character is almost impossible to describe with words, and it’s filled with history and importance around every corner. Passing bridges or churches older than the nation I was born in was a truly humbling experience. With the Czech Republic being the sister country to my father’s homeland, Slovakia, I came with prejudices I soon forgot or no longer believed. There is so much culture that it’s all blurred together, and what remains in my mind is food and the people. For the cost of nothing one can spend hours sitting eating some of the best dumplings (Knedliky) in the world, and laugh with friends to forget about the world.

Next stop was Poland, specifically the small southern town of Zakopane. Here is where it all began. Arriving in the dead of night, we rose early next morning to conquer the mountains. The high Tatras of the Polish and Slovakian border were our target, and only after hours of pain -both mental and physical – could we claim our prize as King of the Mountains.

“How much longer until the waterfall?” I asked.

“Umm…” was Cannon’s response to a question I could barely breathe out of my mouth. The reason for hesitation was due to a mistake: we were climbing the wrong path. Never truly intending to summit this beast, we had our measly sights set for climbing to a waterfall and going home. Yet, due to a mistake we were apparently already three-fourths the way up the entire mountain. As my legs screamed, my joints ached in the cold and I stumbled to the top, I turned to my compatriots and said “Pain is temporary, but glory is forever.” Quite a good way to summarize the all-day climb.

Things began early next morning at 3am, and within hours disaster would strike. As I’ve told my friends now a careless mistake made me the lookalike of an action hero. During a bus-to-train transfer outside Krakow, a sleepy and deprived Jimmy left his passport and Eurail behind on a bus. As soon as I sat down on the train I knew! I darted off without saying a word to anyone and sprinted for the bus. But as I turned the building’s corner it was gone, nowhere in sight. My heart leaped in my mouth and I was truly speechless for the first time in my life.

As I turned to walk back to the train, I saw its doors slam shut and began to haul away from the station. My mind began to process everything, slowly waking from the two hours of sleep I had — “do I find the bus, wait, the train, my stuff, where, oh, uhhh!” In a moment of instinct I jumped onto the side of the train and hung on for dear life. Beating on the side door, I was eventually let inside and didn’t even have to tell my friends what happened. They knew. The embassy was next and within a day I had a passport in my hand. Before leaving Krakow I was lucky enough to find my old envelope entirely full of all my travel essentials, and as I flew back to Metz on Wednesday I couldn’t help feel I had betrayed my friends. We missed our flight to Sweden and in turn the second half of our entire trip.

But all was not lost. A spontaneous decision Friday morning saw me renting a car and driving 11 hours to Barcelona for one of the best two days of my life. And though I may have lost some money I gained a real life experience and one hell of a story.

In previous blogs, I mentioned a great sense of community encompassed here at Georgia Tech-Lorraine by our great Resident Advisers (RAs). Yesterday, on a good friend’s birthday I witnessed this community firsthand in our residents.

We soccer lovers go downtown to play soccer at a local field. Each Tuesday at 6pm you can find us talking to the locals, passing, running, kicking on this tiny little field. Yesterday was no exception, and as we finished up, we all decided we have to help Luke celebrate his birthday the right way.

We started the walk back and fell into great conversations with each other, covering really every topic conceivable. We started with sports, since we had just played some, then TV shows, movies, childhoods, dream jobs, on and on. As we neared the Lafayette dorm, it was time to shower and eat and celebrate with Luke. The scene was very odd; as I approached Luke’s room in the “D” wing of the complex, I said “hi,” left and right to all these close friends I’ve been getting to know over these months. As I opened his door, I saw a roomful of people. The “hello’s” began again, and we started celebrating.

As the night wore on and we fought about the correct ways to get downtown, the mood was completely different than what I was used to. Everyone here knew each other and liked each other. You can go anywhere anytime. However, here at GTL, each moment is unique. Everyone wakes up the next morning with a story, a great tale of the day’s escapades and glories. In my opinion the best part of these get-togethers of ours, is that you get to know other people, other ways of thinking. You really start to open up and experience new things. And you always have something to talk about, like places to visit next weekend, or for fall break.

Thinking back now, this in fact is not the first time I have experienced or witnessed this here at GTL. A few weeks ago we had a local game night in the GTL Lounge hosted by our student run BDE organization. We had the works, poker, board games, and more. Yet the night hinged on the famous ping pong tournament. Everyone was wondering if the great Ola would be beaten – could it be done? In fact it was done (not by me unfortunately). I lost to Ola 25-27, but by the end of the night, it wasn’t about that. People really bonded with each other through the ping pong, poker, whatever medium that was used to initiate socialization. Now, as I walk the halls of Lafayette and GTL it is quite clear these friends here will be some of the best I have, likewise for others.

This blog is more a thank you to our great RAs and faculty here who strive to make this study abroad experience different and unique. Initially I wasn’t sure how it could be done, but now I see, and sincerely thank you.