Never Give Up: Ferroelectrics and Liquid Crystals to Ferroelectric Liquid Crystals

I summarize how I got to physics, and to condensed matter physics specifically. I review the people, from those who did not know physics, but loved the process of learning, like my maternal grandmother to my Master’s and PhD advisors. My PhD advisor told me to run as far away from what he was doing when I had just graduated, and more recently told me to never give up. I will discuss one of my research endeavors that illustrates why you can never give up. We had worked with these liquid crystal and magnetic nanoparticle nanocomposites, and proposed they would be good for biological applications. An opportunity arose to apply them as a contrast agent for MRI.