![\"Ciera](\"https:\/\/grad.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/cipriani_ciera-8806-web-300x169.jpg\")
But lab work doesn\u2019t exclusively define Cipriani. She became involved with WKNC, NC State\u2019s student-run radio station, the first semester of her freshman year, and she has stayed with it even as a master\u2019s student. As a drummer for an indie rock band — which is WKNC\u2019s traditional format — she fit right in as a DJ.<\/p>\n
Now, she has her own weekly show devoted to showcasing musicians of underrepresented genders, \u201cNo Dudes Pwr Hr\u201d on Saturdays. She has broadened her taste in music to include hip hop and other genres.<\/p>\n
Cipriani is also a drummer in the Raleigh band, Soccer Tees<\/a>. You can read about the band here in NC State\u2019s Technician<\/a>.<\/p>\n When she was 8, Cipriani\u2019s Dad, who played the guitar, bought her an acoustic guitar that she never learned to play. But she took up the drums, which he encouraged, and continues to play today.<\/p>\n Soccer Tees was started by Zach Rimmer, guitarist, who worked with Cipriani at the NCSU Libraries\u2019 Makerspace. All band members were NC State students at one time, though Cipriani is the only one left here now.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a bassist that also worked with us at the library, but he moved on. So Zach met Lucas (McBride, bass and vocals) in a class they both had. We added Natalie (King, guitar and vocals) last year, and she has really, really good songs that are really sad,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n They perform regularly in Raleigh and Chapel Hill venues, but they also have appeared at festivals as far away as Virginia and Georgia. Recently, she performed with a different band at King\u2019s \u201cGreat Coverup\u201d in downtown Raleigh.<\/p>\n \u201cSoccer Tees sounds like Socrates, but I didn\u2019t get that joke for months,\u201d Cipriani said, adding with a smile that the name also fits the indie rock theme of using sports themes in band names.<\/p>\n Winning the Three Minute Thesis may have shifted Cipriani\u2019s career goals. For two summers, she worked as an intern at Formlabs, a 3D industrial print shop near Boston and was eager for a career working in industry.<\/p>\n While working in their labs, her advisors Melissa Pasquinelli and Nelson Vinueza recommended that she consider earning a Ph.D. But after she won the 3MT, another professor encouraged her to pursue a Ph.D., and something clicked. \u201cShe told me I would be leaving doors closed if I didn\u2019t at least apply,\u201d Cipriani said.<\/p>\n So she\u2019s applying for Ph.D. programs for fall 2019, but leaving other doors open to the possibility of following her dream of working in industry. \u201cI\u2019m definitely not opposed to the idea of just getting a job, if I find a job that I really like,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I think it would be really difficult to work and then come back to get a Ph.D.\u201d<\/p>\n So much to do; so little time!<\/p>\n This post was originally published<\/a> in The Graduate School News.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false,"raw":"Textiles master\u2019s student Ciera Cipriani is explaining her busy life \u2013 working in the lab, DJ-ing at NC State\u2019s campus radio station WKNC, playing drums in local band Soccer Tees, working in the NCSU Libraries Makerspace \u2013 when she pauses briefly.\r\n\r\n\u201cSo I work in the Makerspace too \u2013 I do too many things\u2026\u201d she says.\r\n\r\nBut doing too much hasn\u2019t slowed Cipriani down. In October, she was chosen as the winner of the Graduate School\u2019s 4th annual Three Minute Thesis. She was one of two master\u2019s students named finalists in the competition where graduate students share their research projects in just three minutes.\r\n\r\nFeb. 14-16, she represented NC State in a regional 3MT competition at the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools meeting in Knoxville where more than 44 universities were represented.\r\n\r\nCipriani said that fellow textiles graduate student Ashish Kapoor, the 2017 3MT People\u2019s Choice winner, encouraged her to apply for the Three Minute Thesis last fall. As a master\u2019s student, she considered waiting one more year to compete.\r\n\r\nBut when she participated in a 3MT preparation workshop offered by the Graduate School, she found that she was ready for the challenge. In the workshop, students had two minutes to present their research with very limited preparation. Cipriani found that she was better prepared that she thought \u2013 she only needed to stretch her presentation from two to three minutes be competition-ready.\r\n\r\nOn Oct. 30 when the 10 finalists competed at Hunt Library, Cipriani was cheered by fellow students and a large contingent of family from nearby. Second place winner Engy Shafik is also from the Wilson College of Textiles.\r\n\r\nCipriani came to NC State\u2019s recently named Wilson College as an undergraduate, after getting a taste of the textiles programs through the college\u2019s Polymer Day Camp program for high school students. \u201cThey had so many professors who were willing to take the time to go to the day camp and talk to all of us. NC State was the place where I felt most like an individual and not like a number,\u201d she said.\r\n\r\nCipriani\u2019s research, simply stated, involves figuring out the chemical reactions that cause dyed fabrics to fade. But there\u2019s a critical side to the research \u2013 as dye molecules in fabrics break down, they produce toxins. So Cipriani\u2019s research is applicable to finding ways to stabilize dye molecules to prevent them from becoming toxins.\r\n\r\nHer master\u2019s program lab work involves computational chemistry, which she describes as \u201csitting in front of a computer, building these dye molecule structures, using visualization software, optimizing their structures, which is a big, fancy word that people say in my line of work. It means finding the minimum energy that the molecule can have,\u201d Cipriani said.\r\n\r\nShe says her favorite part of her research isn\u2019t what she focused on in her Three Minute Thesis presentation. \u201cThe most interesting part to me is actually the photochemistry, so like the chemical reaction mechanisms that are happening, and how individual electrons are moving around in these molecular structures when the sun\u2019s energy interacts with them,\u201d Cipriani said.\r\n\r\nShe sends her constructed molecules off to a high-performance computing cluster for analysis. \u201cSo it\u2019s a lot of method development, trouble shooting,\u201d she said.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_17414\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"400\"] Three Minute Thesis winner and Textile Chemistry graduate student Ciera Cipriani has done some interesting research on fabric dyes, but her academic work isn’t the only thing that defines her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":21600,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"ncstate_wire","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"caption\":\"\",\"displayCategoryID\":2135}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[490,512,502,479],"tags":[669],"class_list":["post-13120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-people","category-research-and-innovation","category-student-success","category-tecs","tag-_from-newswire-collection-58"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":" Ciera Cipriani won the Graduate School's Three Minute Thesis in the fall, but that's research isn't the only way she spends her time. (Becky Kirkland photo)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nBut lab work doesn\u2019t exclusively define Cipriani. She became involved with WKNC, NC State\u2019s student-run radio station, the first semester of her freshman year, and she has stayed with it even as a master\u2019s student. As a drummer for an indie rock band -- which is WKNC\u2019s traditional format -- she fit right in as a DJ.\r\n\r\nNow, she has her own weekly show devoted to showcasing musicians of underrepresented genders, \u201cNo Dudes Pwr Hr\u201d on Saturdays. She has broadened her taste in music to include hip hop and other genres.\r\n\r\nCipriani is also a drummer in the Raleigh band, Soccer Tees<\/a>. You can read about the band here in NC State\u2019s Technician<\/a>.\r\n\r\nWhen she was 8, Cipriani\u2019s Dad, who played the guitar, bought her an acoustic guitar that she never learned to play. But she took up the drums, which he encouraged, and continues to play today.\r\n\r\nSoccer Tees was started by Zach Rimmer, guitarist, who worked with Cipriani at the NCSU Libraries\u2019 Makerspace. All band members were NC State students at one time, though Cipriani is the only one left here now.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe had a bassist that also worked with us at the library, but he moved on. So Zach met Lucas (McBride, bass and vocals) in a class they both had. We added Natalie (King, guitar and vocals) last year, and she has really, really good songs that are really sad,\u201d she said.\r\n\r\nThey perform regularly in Raleigh and Chapel Hill venues, but they also have appeared at festivals as far away as Virginia and Georgia. Recently, she performed with a different band at King\u2019s \u201cGreat Coverup\u201d in downtown Raleigh.\r\n\r\n\u201cSoccer Tees sounds like Socrates, but I didn\u2019t get that joke for months,\u201d Cipriani said, adding with a smile that the name also fits the indie rock theme of using sports themes in band names.\r\n\r\nWinning the Three Minute Thesis may have shifted Cipriani\u2019s career goals. For two summers, she worked as an intern at Formlabs, a 3D industrial print shop near Boston and was eager for a career working in industry.\r\n\r\nWhile working in their labs, her advisors Melissa Pasquinelli and Nelson Vinueza recommended that she consider earning a Ph.D. But after she won the 3MT, another professor encouraged her to pursue a Ph.D., and something clicked. \u201cShe told me I would be leaving doors closed if I didn\u2019t at least apply,\u201d Cipriani said.\r\n\r\nSo she\u2019s applying for Ph.D. programs for fall 2019, but leaving other doors open to the possibility of following her dream of working in industry. \u201cI\u2019m definitely not opposed to the idea of just getting a job, if I find a job that I really like,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I think it would be really difficult to work and then come back to get a Ph.D.\u201d\r\n\r\nSo much to do; so little time!"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"