Dan and I were awake before our early morning alarm.
Courtney reported she was too. This day has been long-awaited for. The amount of work Courtney has put in over the last six years is probably only totally comprehensible to Courtney -- and maybe the other PhD students and professors. That's part of what made this day so special -- seeing her accomplishment through their eyes.
I was in charge of bringing fruit and bagels for the department to celebrate after Courtney's defense.
And when you're in New York, you can't bring grocery store bagels and Philadelphia cream cheese.
Courtney was hoping for Absolute, but I'd waited in an hour-long line there previously so she was okay with the neighborhood shop. But in the end, she'd worked so hard for six years (ten? twenty?),
I wanted to get up extra early so she could have just what she wanted.
As it turned out, Absolute Bagels has no lines at 7:30 a.m.
(But by the time we left with 3 dozen bagels and 8 large tubs of fresh cream cheese,
at least 7 people were waiting.)
We hauled the bags of fruit, juice, paper goods, trays and now bagels & cream cheese the final 10 blocks up to campus which was no easy feat, Dan and I were each carrying probably 30 pounds.
But we were still early when we arrived, so we sat on a bench on the quad for 30 minutes and enjoyed early morning gorgeous spring weather.
At 8:30 we met Courtney & Michael at the Engineering building, got food set up for the committee members while Courtney got her tech up and going and then took seats in the back of the room while twenty of Courtney's peers--lab mates and other ME PhD students filled every last chair.
Her committee consisted of:
Dr. Gerard Ateshian, Courtneys' advisor and PI (principal investigator); Dr. Mel Rosenwasser (orthopedic surgeon) who had the idea for bendable allografts (patellas) and thus the impetus for the research; Dr. Kristin Myers, professor of Mechanical Engineering and a mentor of Courtney's; Dr. Jeff Kysar the previous ME department chair; and Dr. Clark Hung, PI of their sister lab and close collaborator.
Courtney presented for 45 minutes and did a FANTASTIC job!
Thankfully she'd practiced a previous presentation with me and I was able to ask questions, so I understood a couple of her experiments and their purposes she talked about today.
But given she was presenting her dissertation to people who spoke her same engineering and orthopedic and cartilage language, she didn't have to dumb it down for us regular people.
And even though I didn't understand all of it, hearing her talk the talk was just as exciting as it is to hear Chris speak Spanish or Marty speak Japanese! (Or Dan speak Cottonwood Res and finance!)
Her dissertation was composed of four different research projects and resulted in two first author papers and one patent.
Analysis of Bendable Osteochondral Allograft Treatment
and Investigations of Articular Cartilage Wear Mechanics.
Musculoskeletal Biomechanics, Columbia Engineering
She was so calm and presented with conviction and confidence.
I shed a few tears listening to how knowledgable she was.
Over the past six years we've learned a few details about her research and what she does, but we get the VERY watered down version. Basically we know she's always trying to get models to work, she does something with bovine knee joints and human knees, and made a special kind of scissors.
I just recently learned she's the one who scrubbed up and dissected the bone, cartilage and entire joint from the skin, fat and muscle. Yuck! Yet also, very impressive!
No wonder she says she can never drink bone broth.
It was also so cool to see so many friends who joined to watch via Zoom!
Marty & Lizzie, Gram, Sara (Courtney's UW roommate), Carine and Taylor (Courtney's long time best friends), Michael's parents and sister and many others!
After she completed her presentation, she had a final slide of fun pics with her lab over the years
and got to give thanks to Gerard and everyone who supported her and worked with her.
Then most of us were excused and she was left with the five committee members.
They quizzed her about her dissertation (they'd received the full book previously) and asked questions--
Her answers was her official "defense."
While she was being grilled, the rest of us mingled in the engineering department front office, eating food chatting with her friends and many admirers.
After 20 minutes, Courtney joined us to cheers and clapping from everyone in the room!
Seeing all of Courtney's proud peers surround her and lavish her with compliments about her hard work and generosity in taking time to help anyone who needed it throughout all their time at Columbia was a dream come true.
(Reminded me of my favorite part of visiting Marty's mission--all the people who were so thrilled to see him again because they loved him so much.
As a mom, getting to see this side of Courtney was the same. A highlight of a lifetime!)
This note from Gerard was just one of dozens just like it from so many people.
And then, the committee arrived, with the most wonderful words,
"Congratulations, Doctor!"
(yep, crying again remembering!)
Everyone was happy to stick around and celebrate.
I was happy to soak it all in.
But eventually everyone had to go to class or to the lab or back to work.
We weren't in a rush, though, so we got a tour of Courtney's lab and the instruments she's used over the years.
We took pictures around campus...
This quad southeast of her building has a beautiful view of the city,
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...and also of the student apartment we sublet the summer Courtney was one when Dan did his internship at Smith Barney in 1996. 27 years later Courtney would be graduating with her PhD from Columbia!
I love foreshadowing!
When all the festivities were done, and Courtney was officially starved and wiped out,
we went to Alea for lunch, but it was closed.
So we ate at French Roast at the corner, a place I walked past all the time when we lived on 81st and Broadway and I've been dying to know more about it. Guess what, it's great!
Then home for naps. And a walk around the reservoir. It was a shorts and t-shirt day. Perfect.
Our final celebration was at Manhatta -- amazing dinner with a view,
a graduation theme since celebrating at the Space Needle in Seattle after she graduated from UW.
You've been on a long and wonderful journey, Courtney.
We could say it started with Mr. Summerhays, who encouraged your questions and sparked your enthusiasm for science. You loved him so much, you took three physics classes from him at Olympus.
Or maybe it started with Mr. Gregory, your 9th grade math teacher in jr. high.
The year before you cried because you wished your talent wasn't math and other gifts seemed so much more appealing to an eighth grade girl. But with Mr. Gregory, with Taylor and Taylor and the call to NASA, you started to embrace how special that part of you was.
We could look back even to third grade when you wanted to stay up until midnight practicing your math facts with Aunt Marge so you could feel confident for your quizzes.
Here's the memory I keep thinking of:
You'd received a scholarship in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington and had achieved your goal of going out of state for college. The first day of the rest of your life.
You've made us proud, Dr. Courtney Petersen, Ph.D.
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