Piotr Adamczyk was born in Poland, grew up in Illinois, and went from earning bachelor's degrees in mathematics and computer science to studying for master's degrees in both human factors and library information science. Marcos Sotomayor came to Illinois from Chile with a degree in physics, but at Beckman he does biological computer simulations. Danielle Chandler wasn't satisfied to get one degree at Illinois; she earned three in the spring of 2005. Maritza Alvarado has known what she wanted to do since the age of 13: become a doctor. That challenge wasn't quite enough for the Southern California native, however. She's also working toward a Ph.D. in neuroscience.

About the only thing these four University of Illinois graduate students have in common is that they are all engaged in some type of research at the Beckman Institute. There are more than 600 graduate students from just about every scientific discipline on campus at Beckman who, other than perhaps sharing the look of someone who has spent too much time in the lab and not enough sleeping, defy any attempt to label them as a "typical" grad student.

As a group they do much of the groundwork that makes the research possible, but as individuals they are diverse in their histories, goals, research interests, and in how they ended up at the Beckman Institute. While there may not be a typical Beckman grad student, Adamczyk could serve as the Institute's poster boy. His approach to science would make Arnold Beckman proud.

Piotr Adamczyk

"To boil it down, I'm interested in interdisciplinary approaches," Adamczyk said.

"All the problems that I'm interested in are ones that need various perspectives. If I come at it from one disciplinary angle, I keep thinking that there are things that aren't being addressed."

Adamczyk is earning Master's degrees from the departments of Library Information Science and Human Factors in order to address issues from different perspectives.

"Library information science deals a lot with how people organize and categorize information. Human factors deals with how they perceive and act on it," Adamczyk said.

"Library science helps us make decisions about what information to provide and human factors tells us how we do that."

Adamczyk is part of an effort on campus to integrate computer science and the creative arts; he served as a teaching assistant for Professor Kevin Hamilton for a Spring 2007 course called Memory Palaces that dealt with architecture and technology. He also helped organize a conference focusing on tools for incorporating computer science into creative endeavors.

"What we are trying to do is find out how science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and all of that relates to design practices and how the creativity that is coming out of the design practices might be applied," Adamczyk said.