Student Profiles

Carl Irani
Undergraduate student in UCF's Nano Track program

Carl was born in Queens, New York, but grew up in Orlando, Florida. Carl is a 20-year-old Junior at UCF and is enrolled in our unique undergraduate Nano Track program. "This is a really great interdisciplinary program, it is the only nanoscience undergraduate program in the state of Florida and there are only a handful of these nano programs across the country. I became interested in nanoscience because my uncle, who works at Johnson &. Johnson, told me I should look into this field. He said there were some new and exciting things happening, its expanding and growing and now is the time to get into this area. I took his advice and ran with it."

Right now Carl is working with Dr. Lei Zhai, a faculty member at the NanoScience Technology Center. "I am working on lots of projects now, improving the fabrication of nanofibers for drug delivery systems using organic polymers, and I am also collaborating with another UCF student (Kenneth Etcheverry) creating anti-reflection coatings on polymer substrates using a spray coating. I am also working on the fabrication of an anti-bacteria nanofiber filter that could be used to filter polluted water. I like to see what the other labs are doing as well, because it's always changing. You can learn a lot of things here, even if you don't have that much knowledge in the field of the lab you are working . The people are really friendly and able to help you out, as long as, you don't make the same mistake more than once. So when you learn something, you have to make sure you get it and move on. You have to be a quick learner in nanotechnology, or any science for that matter. When you do learn things, you learn it and you remember it because you are doing the projects yourself. This is really good because otherwise over the summer, I would probably be at the beach not being so productive, but at the Nanoscience Technology center I get to learn lots of things about nanotechnology and have fun, reading research papers and learning more about where this constantly changing exciting field is going."

After Carl graduates he plans to continue his education. "I would like to pursue a Master's in Business Administration (MBA) and combine my interest in nanoscience with business, it's perfect for me."