Interview with Paul Sanchez, senior research associate at the Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research at University of Colorado, Boulder. Sanchez recounts his childhood in Ecuador, where be discovered an early interest in math and attended a military academy for high school. He describes attending the National Polytechnic School in Ecuador and choosing to focus on physics. Sanchez then discusses his decision to pursue a PhD at the University of Nottingham, originally to work on superconductivity but shifted focus to materials sciences and granular matter. Sanchez talks about wanting to return to Ecuador after completing his PhD, but describes the difficulties in finding a job in his home country due to the relative lack of a robust scientific tradition. He recounts his decision to accept a postdoctoral position at University of Rennes 1 in France, where he worked on super stable heaps. Sanchez then describes the events leading him to the University of Colorado. He ends the interview by emphasizing the importance of being willing to learn and adapt as you navigate a career in the sciences.
