Moses Noh

[Ph.D. ME 2004]
Assistant Professor
Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics
Drexel University
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

In fact, it was not me but my advisor who chose Georgia Tech. Dr. Peter Hesketh transferred from University of Illinois at Chicago to Georgia Tech and I decided to follow him. At that time, I was newly married and my wife and I decided to pioneer a new life in a new place like Atlanta. Plus, I knew that Georgia Tech was one of the top-ranked engineering schools.

Georgia Tech is a research oriented institution. Also the Woodruff School is a gigantic Mechanical Engineering school that has over 80 faculty members. I was able to see a variety of state-of-the-art researchers there and could take many exciting courses taught by renowned professors. I think this environment prepared me to be a future professor.

You can do whatever you want to do in terms of research. Excellent facilities, brilliant faculty and students, and good financial support make it possible. Another strength is diversity in research and course work that comes from the gigantic size of the school. I think it is one of the best in the nation although I was not grateful about that when I was there.

Anecdote

I had several chances to work with undergraduate research assistants during my Ph.D. program. There was a female student who was working with me during the summer semester. One day, her boy friend called the lab and I answered it as usual by saying, "MEMS Lab." At this, he was shocked and said, "Men's Lab.? What is Stephanie doing in the Men's Lab.?" (MEMS is an acronym of Microelectromechanical Systems).