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Jimbo Paris Show with Nathaniel McKeever – Everything Starts with Substance.
11 Plays3 years ago
“If you're passionate about something, pursue that passion and follow it to the nth degree. And in that process, remember to be patient with yourself while you're learning.”
Nathaniel McKeever is a Material Scientist refining his deep learning image analysis capabilities in a CMC application with Research's Materials Characterization group. In addition, he is performing imaging-based microstructural analysis on a superalloy designed for GE turbine engine components.
He is currently the president of GE Research's Newcomers Club, a club dedicated to engaging new employees with the local community.
#GEProud #GEInnovation
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Transcript
Introduction of Nathaniel McKeever
00:00:06
Speaker
I am Jimbo Paris and you're listening to the Jimbo Paris show. All right, how's it going, everyone? I am Jimbo Paris and welcome again to the Jimbo Paris show. And today we have a special guest, a scientist from GE, material scientist and Edison engineer, and it's Nathaniel McKeever.
00:00:33
Speaker
And again, we are going to sit down and have a little talk with them and kind of learn a lot about it. Looking forward to being on the show. And I'm looking forward to interview you.
Role and Academic Journey
00:00:46
Speaker
So the first question I ask is always, what do you specifically do?
00:00:54
Speaker
So specifically, I am a material scientist by training. So the end result of my work goes into the development of a new material, one that'll be likely used on engines. I work a lot with GE Aerospace. But even more specifically, my work is focused on a subfield called image analysis. So looking at taking micrographs from a inspection tool like optical microscopy or scanning electron microscopy.
00:01:21
Speaker
and analyzing that, extracting bits and pieces of information to give to a experimentalist to be able to analyze and progress their development of that material system. OK. That's really cool. And kind of to add to that, how long have you been in this industry? So I studied material science in college. I did my undergraduate as well as my master's in that discipline.
00:01:50
Speaker
And then upon graduating, I joined GE Research. So that's been about two and a half years with the company. So I guess in total, that would be about seven and a half years of studying explicitly material science. Now, you kind of gave a bit of this already, but can you kind of give us a bit of, you know, your career history and how you specifically became an Edison engineer and what is that?
00:02:17
Speaker
Yeah, so really my interest for math and science began at an early age around middle school. At that point I was gaining an aptitude towards math and science and wanted to dive deeper in certain courses in high school. Around high school time I made the decision to pursue engineering as a field. I didn't know exactly what
00:02:41
Speaker
discipline yet, but I knew I wanted to go down that direction. So I applied to engineering schools, went to Johns Hopkins University to study
00:02:52
Speaker
engineering. At that point, I was undecided. I didn't know if I wanted to do mechanical engineering or material science. It was all pretty vague to me. So I took a course that exposed me to all the disciplines of engineering. It was just a one hour lecture that kind of gave a deep dive or a high level overview of what is that discipline of engineering? What type of work do you do?
00:03:15
Speaker
And in that course, I was able to down select my interest towards either mechanical engineering and material science. And I, since then, got involved in a bunch of research programs at my school. And from that, that led me to switch my major to material science and study math discipline more closely. I continue to be a part of a number of research projects while I was at Johns Hopkins.
00:03:41
Speaker
going from group to group, trying to see what the different types of material science is within that broader discipline. It's a very large field of study, ranging from biomaterials to non-biomaterials like metals or ceramics.
Edison Program and AI in Research
00:03:57
Speaker
So trying out a number of labs, seeing where I thought my interests would most align. And towards the end of my undergrad, I got a referral for
00:04:09
Speaker
a internship program at GE Research. And I was really interested in the work that's being done in industry and how what I was learning in school is relevant in the industrial space. And so that led me to apply for the Edison program. The Edison program is unique because you do a rotation every single year, trying out different groups, different laboratories. In theory, you can do
00:04:35
Speaker
work that's outside the discipline that you studied in college. So I could spend a year rotation in the characterization group, let's say, and then spend another year exploring an area completely outside of material science as a discipline, perhaps as a controls engineer. In my case, I already knew my interest was material science, so I kept all my rotations within the characterization group really focused on this area of high-throughput image analysis.
00:05:04
Speaker
And so that's led me to where I am currently. I'm really focusing in and developing an expertise in this space. The next question I was going to ask is what specific tasks or group did you belong to? But to add to that, how did sort of the rotations and you getting into image analysis kind of affect
00:05:23
Speaker
the specific task or group you eventually joined in with when you began working at GE. So when I began working they really looked to align your skill set with projects that are currently available and because of my internship I was exposed to really this new area. All my work prior to
00:05:46
Speaker
to joining GE was mostly experimental driven, meaning that I would go into a lab and run experiments by hand. And during my internship, I was given the task of developing a neural network for somatic segmentation of gamma, gamma prime
00:06:04
Speaker
So what does that mean? That means they took a bunch of images of this alloy system and they are left with a number of micrographs and the idea is could we train a neural network to do a segmentation, basically discern what is one phase in that image versus another phase in that image and be able to quantify that information.
00:06:27
Speaker
Now at that point, I didn't have much of a background in computer science. I took maybe a course or so, but nothing with neural network development or implementation.
00:06:38
Speaker
And that entire summer experience really exposed me to this new field. It sort of, I would say, kind of was a pivot point in my career. It led me to take more computation-based courses in my master's program, and then ultimately led to what I would be doing my first rotation upon joining GE full-time, really continuing in that vein, looking at how to utilize AI neural network design to be able to accelerate our image analysis workflow.
00:07:08
Speaker
And from there, it's just one thing led to a next, right? I got involved with the project and that ended up leading me to another project and really beginning building my skill set within this domain. The Edison Engineering Development Program, I might be wrong about this, but is it the same thing as the Edison Engineering you were explaining before? Is this a specific kind of
00:07:33
Speaker
Yeah, so it's the same thing. So there's some words that are relatively interchangeable. So sometimes we'll call it the Edison Engineering Development Program or just the Edison Engineering Program. It's the same concept. It's this three year rotation program that aims to give you a deeper understanding of how research is done in industry.
00:07:53
Speaker
So what are some notable experiences that you've personally had at GB? These could be non-business oriented, these could be a lot more personal, anything really.
00:08:05
Speaker
Yeah, so I think what's unique about GE research is the emphasis on continual learning, right? At GE research, we're looking at developing a material system or a product that is really five to 10 years out, right? It's not direct implementation industry. There's going to be a delay between what we're investigating and its implementation on the market.
Curiosity and Educational Challenges
00:08:31
Speaker
And as a result, it's our responsibility as researchers to continuously learn. And there's a big emphasis within GE research on this. And I think one of the most unique opportunities that I've been able to have since joining the company is being able to go out and learn new software that's available in the commercial setting. I went out to do an entire training on a software platform called the Eigenvector
00:08:58
Speaker
software. And it was really interesting because I was able to spend a week understanding PCA, principal component analysis at a deeper level. And I think that's a unique opportunity within the industrial setting. You always think about learning and that style of course being present in school, but the ability to continue doing that post-graduation is
00:09:19
Speaker
I think a very unique one and makes GE research very special. And that experience, while is unique, isn't just unique to me and my experience within GE research. I know many colleagues who also partake in various learning opportunities while with the company.
00:09:39
Speaker
How did your passion for the field of kind of material science kind of begin? Did it start in your childhood? Did it start when you were a teen? Did it start in college? When did it happen and how did it?
00:09:54
Speaker
Yeah, I think it really first started off with that interest of math and science. But then also, it started to develop with certain questions of why certain things occur. You look at certain structures that exist throughout human history. Let's take, for example, the Eiffel Tower. You look at that and you're like, this building's really tall. It has a bunch of holes in it. Why does it still stand? Why doesn't it just completely crumble?
00:10:20
Speaker
People have built for ages buildings out of stone that are much shorter. How can this can be so much taller and look way less stable than the stone buildings but still stand the test of time? And the answer to that is a materials question. You know you can ask your parents why is the Eiffel Tower strong and they'll often say well steel is stronger than stone.
00:10:41
Speaker
And that's a great answer, but it doesn't fully fulfill that childhood question of why. I mean, why is, evidently, it's stronger than stone.
00:10:51
Speaker
What in steel makes that uniquely stronger than stone? And that's the question that material science looks to answer. It's really this question of why certain mechanisms occur. Once you understand why that material is strong, what in the microstructure enables that strength, you can begin to optimize it and make the next generation material. And I think that's really what's interesting about the domain. In some ways, it's
00:11:20
Speaker
The primary form of engineering without a new material, all the subsequent forms of engineering really does not exist. You always start with the material before you go on and implement a mechanical design.
00:11:36
Speaker
or come up with a new computer system, everything begins with that material. So material science really drives, in some ways, most of what we do with engineering. So I thought it'd be a very interesting field to study as a result. And again, you seem like a very, well, you are in fact a very intelligent person. So when you were
00:12:00
Speaker
young kind of, what challenges did you face when growing up and doing the sciences? Because I would assume a lot of kids your age weren't into sciences as much as you were. Well, it's always a tricky question, kind of looking back and like, what challenges did you face necessarily? I think one thing that's, that's hard is we all develop at different rates, right? I think often,
00:12:25
Speaker
Many individuals can be discouraged by not meeting certain metrics at an early age. What I mean by this is, for example, often in middle school or elementary school, you'll take a standardized test. And that standardized test, you don't think we will dictate that much, but ends up dictating whether you get placed in that advanced course or whether you don't get placed in that advanced course. And from that,
00:12:53
Speaker
simple decision at the age of 10, you end up being slaughtered or you begin thinking, wow, I'm good at math and science, I'm not good at English, or I'm good at history and not good at music, let's say.
00:13:08
Speaker
And I think one thing that if I could impress upon others is perhaps don't put so much weight into that first initial test. Bear with it. Wait a little bit longer. Let yourself develop more before you say, I'm not good at math and science. I'm not good at English. For me, this is sort of a thing that resonates because my birthday was later in a cutoff.
00:13:31
Speaker
My birthday was towards the end of the New York City public school cutoffs and if you read some Malcolm Gladwell books you'll discover very quickly the world unfortunately isn't the most favorable if your birthday is late in the cutoff just because your brain is less developed at a younger age. It's not the biggest challenge you'll ever see but it's enough to make you discouraged.
00:13:53
Speaker
right? And if you're discouraged, you will not continue that focus. And if you can sort of overcome that hump of discouragement and continue that focus, you can be greatly rewarded through that diligence of studying and sort of pushing through. You know, you really can't say you're good or bad at something until at least you're
00:14:13
Speaker
in your college years, it's hard to say, well, oh, I'm bad at, I can't write something well in high school. I mean, chances are you might just need to focus a little bit more to get good at that. So being open-minded, being patient with yourself is something that I've definitely had to struggle and learn over time.
AI in Material Development and Industry Impact
00:14:33
Speaker
Now in elementary school, I'll be perfectly honest, I was not placed in those classes. I was not showing much of an aptitude towards really any subject
00:14:41
Speaker
I was very fortunate that I went on to middle school and in my middle school setting it was smaller class size there was more attention being given to each individual student that it was really during that period I noticed that I was able to begin excelling in the academics and I'm very grateful for some amazing teachers during my middle school time
00:15:03
Speaker
And that ended up leading to the confidence to do well in high schools, leading me to go to Johns Hopkins and now be at GE Research. But if you kind of take a couple steps back in that story, the story could have easily gone a different way, right? Had I not had those incredible teachers, had those teachers not had an open mind, given every student more focused, had those class sizes not been a little bit smaller, I could have never made it to that class that got the extra one hour of studies.
00:15:32
Speaker
And it's a hard one, right? It's one that this problem is one that's not going to be solved on this show, unfortunately, but it's definitely one to consider, right? Because as a person, when you're doing your studies, I think often we look at our peers and from that assessment, we will quickly say, yeah, I'm just not good at math and science. He's much better.
00:15:55
Speaker
But if you can stick with it a little bit, give yourself that time, that time to develop. Recognize that maybe it does take a couple of years or you were just later in the cutoff and you have to be patient. Your time when you might excel might be in high school. And then in speaking to a lot of friends and colleagues now,
00:16:17
Speaker
I'm not alone in this journey, right? There are many individuals who don't show promise until later on into their high school years or sometimes even their college years. So I think the big takeaway from this is learn the art of patience, you know, even, and I try to remember this even as a professional, right? It takes some time to,
00:16:44
Speaker
You want to learn everything so quickly, right? And you work with people who are very, very bright around you. And sometimes you just need to take that time and recognize that you need to give your brain time to learn new information and really be able to absorb and, and get to the next level of understanding to be able to progress a certain field or, or hit the next benchmark in a career.
00:17:08
Speaker
very patient. All right. Before this interview, I kind of took a quick glance at your LinkedIn. And you're essentially a material scientist working on AI. So
00:17:21
Speaker
How do these two different things come together, material science and AI? The use of AI within social media platforms, let's say, that's I think what comes to a number of people's minds, as well as looking at AI for Google searching. That's where we see it very prevalent in our day to day.
00:17:39
Speaker
AI is a fancy term for being able to sort through data, right? It's new, but it's not exactly new. The math has been around for a bit and it enables us to look at large pieces of information and be able to just understand correlations and perhaps where to go next in that big swath of information.
00:18:00
Speaker
And when you think about material science as a discipline, we are a discipline with a large amount of information, very disparate in its format. Sometimes we see a lot of what we call tabular data, where these are numbers related to certain properties of a material, let's say the electron negativity of a material or the atomic number. Now, AI really comes in as a way to help develop reason and correlations between
00:18:30
Speaker
these very seemingly disparate pieces of information. Richard Feynman, I believe, said, I might be quoting him incorrectly, but I believe he once said that one of the greatest lies of this universe is the fact that we can't accurately make a new material. And what does he mean by that? We know all the elements of the periodic table, and you would think it would just be like cooking, right? We could just be like, let's take some titanium, let's take some niobium, put it together, and we'll get something to do.
00:19:00
Speaker
It doesn't exactly work like that. The physics is incredibly complicated once we start combining these unique elements together. And the hope is that AI helps us or guides us to that next spot. And that's where the merger really comes in, using it to guide us as to where to go next. Is it perfect? No. There's many rooms for other forms of data analytics to come in. But it's a tool.
00:19:29
Speaker
to help guide that experimentalist to accelerate materials faster. Excellent. Now this tool in particular, can you kind of tell us the importance of this work and kind of the goal that GE is aiming for or has?
00:19:49
Speaker
So right now, to make a new material costs an immense amount of money and also requires an immense amount of time. Don't quote me on this, but I'm fairly confident it takes about a billion dollars and about 10 years worth of time to make a new alloy system. And why is this important, right? I was saying many of the problems earlier
00:20:09
Speaker
that we see in our world are materials problems. When you think about global warming, how to solve certain concepts like this, how to make an engine that perhaps is more fuel efficient, all of this stems from how do we get a more ideal material. So if we are the bottleneck of the engineering process, that means there's huge amounts of investment to see how we can
00:20:32
Speaker
make material science go faster. The word faster cannot be said enough in the field of material science. We could be making alloy systems that are new left and right and have them useful. That would be huge, right?
00:20:45
Speaker
AI gives us the ability to potentially go faster, to screen through materials quickly before doing the expensive experiments. Then from that initial down selection, be able to then go forth and do experiments where they are necessary. And the hope here is by going through this process,
00:21:08
Speaker
and using AI to inform those experiments, we can enable material science to be done faster. And that's important for end customers as well as larger problems such as global
Current Role and Personal Life
00:21:20
Speaker
warming.
00:21:20
Speaker
Now, besides global warming, how do you think this can be kind of translated to more everyday things and scenarios for like the common person? Most people these days travel quite a bit, right? You get on a plane. One place that my work is directly applicable is the development of new engines.
00:21:39
Speaker
So the average person will get on a plane a number of times a year to see family loved ones, especially now it's around Thanksgiving, Christmas time. So I know a number of people will be traveling and often you get that ticket that's fairly expensive.
00:21:55
Speaker
What if you could reduce the cost of that ticket, enable more people to see the world, explore new cultures, exchange ideas, right? It's one of the hallmarks of really the 20th century, this ability to explore the world cheaply. And that's going to be something that is a trend going into the 21st century, right? How can we
00:22:15
Speaker
see new places, be able to connect the world more closely. I think that's where the end person will see some of the work that I'm involved with. Now, obviously, I'm not the one solving that myself. It's huge teams of people, many, many engineers working on that end product. But that's really where all this work ends up going, right? How can we reduce the cost of airfare, make it more
00:22:42
Speaker
democratize it, make it more accessible to the end customer.
00:22:46
Speaker
And would you want that personally? I think being able to be connected to the world is something that is very important. Being able to see different places. I mean, that's as far as learning new information, that's something that's really important, right? Being able to explore new culture, see something new. That is something that is very exciting, right? And beyond just the world. Think about, for example, space travel, right? Many of the same materials problems that you see within
00:23:13
Speaker
the commercial aviation market today becomes similar materials problems to what you're going to see other firms like SpaceX perhaps needing, right? These constraints needing a high temperature material that's not going to melt under extreme temperatures. That's going to be important going into the future. You know, it's hard to predict what's that going to look like because it is such long timeframes that we're talking about.
00:23:40
Speaker
10, 15 years. But I think people will see that end result of connectivity. And that's what people will remember from some of this work with next generation jet engine development.
00:23:52
Speaker
What other endeavors are you a part of in GE? So as far as other endeavors, I'm currently the president of the Newcomers Club. So it's an organization on site that is focused on connecting new hires to be able to integrate them with the company culture. And it's a very important organization because
00:24:14
Speaker
As a new hire, you join the company, you move up to Niski Unit in New York. You might have never been a part of this area. And being able to show what the organization is upon joining is very, very important for attention, right? As well as ensuring that individuals feel that they have a sense of community. So people really begin understanding what the GRC looks like, who to go if they have a question in a different group or a different lab.
00:24:42
Speaker
We host a number of events that we do a summer fest during the summer period, where we'll play a bunch of outdoor games, as well as have an entire lunch fully catered. And then in the wintertime, sometimes we'll do cross country skiing, as well as going seeing a movie as an entire group. So it's a very exciting organization for sure. Going back to kind of you personally, what does a normal GE workday look like?
00:25:10
Speaker
What's unique about GE research currently is sort of the work week, I think. We're in a hybrid mode right now, which means Monday and Fridays will be working remotely, while Tuesday through Thursday will be on site. So what does that mean in terms of a week? That means a lot of my independent work is being done Monday and Friday. That's where I'm catching up on analyses or implementing some of the ideas that came up during meetings during that Tuesday through Thursday. And then during Tuesday through Thursday, I'm really spending that time
00:25:40
Speaker
meeting with senior and principal scientists to discuss where research should go next. So to get a little bit more specific in your question, my average workday definitely changes depending on whether it's a Monday or let's say a Wednesday, but I'll give you the Wednesday because that's a little bit more exciting. I'll spend my morning
00:25:59
Speaker
discussing with people, having a series of meetings with updates of work that I've done previously. Sometimes the update can be as simple as, yep, we still have more problems to hash out. The data doesn't exactly make sense, but here's why. Sometimes it's immensely exciting where we discovered something new within the material that might be able to guide that experimentalists.
00:26:23
Speaker
That's always the most exciting. I wish I could say that's every single meeting that I'm a part of, but that is rather rare, right? Most of the time, you're really thinking more about the data, trying to understand whether you're thinking about it correctly or not. And additionally, when you're not working, what kind of keeps you a bit busy? What are your hobbies and your passions on the side?
00:26:47
Speaker
Yeah, so I do a little bit of music on the side. So I studied music while I was in school as well. I studied at Peabody Conservatory. So I continue that, teach a number of lessons, as well as play in a couple of groups in the capital region. So that's my primary thing outside of work, as well as doing some hiking. A lot of outdoors adventures. One of the pluses about working in this area is the ability to get outside, go hiking,
00:27:15
Speaker
go swimming in the summertime when the lakes are not freezing cold, but also in the winter being able to go skiing, whether cross-country or downhill. We're close to a number of mountains in the area, so it's exciting to be able to take part in the lovely nature that's around. Do you think these hobbies positively affect your work and thinking life as a scientist and vice versa? Oh, 100%. Yeah, no, it's
00:27:42
Speaker
I think it's very, very crucial to have something else, right? If you think about what I was saying before, a lot of my work is really thinking about problems very, very deeply.
Advice and Concluding Thoughts
00:27:52
Speaker
And it's important to take your mind off
00:27:55
Speaker
the problems that you're currently thinking of to have that inspiration. Sometimes you're thinking about something incorrectly and if you don't have that time to step away from it, I don't really know how you would be able to constantly be able to pass that barrier. It's not like you'll just go in and be able to solve every single problem that you see. So just being able to step away from the work and sort of turn that part of your brain off is almost as important as being able to
00:28:21
Speaker
keep it on during the work day. So what are your future plans and goals, career-wise? As far as my future goals, I want to continue in the same vein, utilizing AI and machine learning for materials development and really accelerating that process, gaining the expertise needed to be able to implement these tools to make a number of cutting-edge breakthroughs.
00:28:48
Speaker
to be able to use those tools to really progress the development of material science would make me immensely happy in my career. And I think GE is a fantastic place to be able to progress that, being able to use them as a platform to be able to constantly build my knowledge, as well as utilize the resources that they have to make
00:29:12
Speaker
that next cutting edge material. My goal is in some ways to continue right now what I am currently doing and developing these core competencies that I'm currently focused on. This has been an excellent interview. Thank you again for being such a good guest. I really enjoyed asking you these questions and hopefully you enjoyed this as well. And kind of to just end this off,
00:29:42
Speaker
Are there any sort of concluding, finalizing words you'd like to kind of give to the audience? I think if I had one concluding couple of words, if you're interested in something, right? If you're fascinated by the study of engineering or perhaps something in not engineering wise,
00:30:00
Speaker
i would say pursue it right if you're passionate about something pursue that passion follow it to the nth degree and in that process remember to be patient with yourself while you're learning there'll be many ups and downs within that pursuit of your passion acquiring the ability to be patient as you learn along the way i think is really an attribute that will ultimately lead to the success and
00:30:22
Speaker
any discipline that you choose to study, whether it be material science or something completely
Show Closing
00:30:28
Speaker
different. Although I am a little bit hoping that people listening into this might decide to study the material science disciplines, perhaps not, but we'll see.
00:30:40
Speaker
Probably will. Thank you again for being on the show. Awesome, thank you. So just to end this off here, a few quick shout outs. First of all, Lifework Systems, this is our affiliate and collaborative partner. She's essentially an HR superstar, and she goes out and helps corporate businesses improve their business infrastructure, their social infrastructure, and to create a better collegial environment in that specific work.
00:31:08
Speaker
I'm kind of her lead. Reach out to me if you want to get a connection to her. She's a great resource for any medium to large size business. Next up, the show. It's on our YouTube channel. Click that bell. Check us out. We're slowly growing in subscribers. So subscribe if you want to see more great interviews like this. Then our Roku channel. The Roku channel is sort of the
00:31:35
Speaker
new thing we're doing right now. This is going to be on Roku as well as all of our other episodes. So check that out. And then the final thing, Jimbo Paris services, we are now offering a service based business. If you're interested in working with us, as we are doing with some other corporate businesses, check us out. We offer marketing advice, consulting advice,
00:31:59
Speaker
And we also help, you know, improve your own leads to the specific audiences. All right. Thanks again. I'm Jimbo Paris. This is the Jimbo Parish. Thank you for listening to the Jimbo Parish show.