Matthew Gorfien

Say it in 6: "To grow personally, professionally, and culturally." Matthew is pursuing his PhD in Physics at Florida State in order to chip away at a larger understanding of nature and to fulfill his curiosity about, well, everything. He received a National Science Foundation Asian and Pacific Summer Institute Fellowship to perform research at the Institute of Physics in Beijing and the Jiao Tong University in Shanghai. There he conducted research on how nanoscale semiconductors conduct heat, an integral question for developing electronics technologies that make use of smaller and smaller circuits. Matthew integrated this research into his dissertation, and later returned to China for another month-long research trip. In the future, he expects his time in China to result in long-lasting research collaborations, friendships, and possible career connections.