E46: Teamwork, Part Two | Lydia Ellen Tonani-Penha | Materials Science and Engineering

Lydia Ellen Tonani-Penha:Typically I had very bad experiences with teamwork in the past, because I didn't have the tools to know what to do when conflict came along. When I was introduced to these tools, it was a game changer for me. And ever since then, my experience going through project work drastically improved and I saw that that was an exceptional thing that I wanted others to have.

Jon Cain: Teamwork, whether you love it or you think it's a four-letter word, we're here to help you navigate it. Today on The WPI Podcast, we'll explore a tool that can help you and any team you're part of get set up for success Hi, I'm Jon Cain, and this is your home for news and expertise from the classrooms and labs of Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Thanks for joining us for the second of our two-episode feature on effective teamwork. Our guest on the show is Lydia Ellen Tonani-Penha. She's a PhD student in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering. She's studying ways to extract potable water from the subsurface of Mars. The goal is to help make future exploration possible on the red planet. No big deal, right? And while she's doing all that, she's a student fellow at the SWEET Center here at WPI. SWEET's an acronym that stands for Supporting WPI through Effective and Equitable Teamwork. The center's a place where students can go to get guidance navigating teamwork. At the center, Lydia consults with individual students and teams to help them improve their teamwork.

Lydia, thanks for being on The WPI podcast. 

Lydia Ellen Tonani-Penha: Thank you for having me. 

Cain: Lydia, we're gonna talk in just a few minutes in depth about one of the tools the SWEET Center uses to help students, and I think it can help any team, but I'd like to start by asking you, what is it you think makes teamwork so magical and powerful when it's done right?

Tonani-Penha: That is a very good question. I don't want to give a loaded answer, but I feel that when you work on something individually, there's only so much one person can bring to the table. There's a very limited set of skills, there's a limited set of experiences, and there's a limited amount of technical expertise because there's only so much time, uh, one person alone can invest into a specific subject. But when you have a team instead of working as an individual, you have a wider variety of backgrounds, projects and skills, related jobs and coursework, relevant experiences, and you have more areas of technical expertise that can come into play. And when you have these unique attributes coming to a team and going into a project, you can get a lot more, not just in terms of productivity, but the experience itself can be more enjoyable. You can have a lot more fun conversations when you're having team bonding experiences because some people's passions and interests can, you know, intersect. Some people can have personal and cultural backgrounds that can overlap, and others can have fields of creative expression or even sports that they like. And when teams can mesh well that way, it makes teamwork magical, and it makes projects become easier and more effective. 

Cain: Lydia, you also did your undergraduate work here at WPI, and as an undergrad, you actually came to the SWEET Center to get some support on teamwork, and now you're one of the ones providing that support to undergraduates. So I'm wondering, how did that first experience coming in for support help shape the approach that you take now to helping others with teamwork? 

Tonani-Penha: That's a great question. When I came to the Sweet Center as an undergrad, it was specifically during my IQP because we have the IQP, MQP, humanities and arts project that can be as a group typically in our project-based learning. When I was going through that experience, I had never actually encountered a group that was willing to support teams as a built-in part of the learning process. The Sweet Center is unique in that way, and I really enjoyed the insight and support that gave me because typically I had very bad experiences with teamwork in the past, in other parts of my undergraduate career and my high school because I didn't have the tools to know what to do when conflict came along. When I was introduced to these tools, it was a game changer for me. And ever since then, my experience going through project work drastically improved and I saw that that was an exceptional thing that I wanted others to have. So being an undergrad and going through the IQP, MQP, humanities and arts, and also a grad student going through graduate school class projects with research papers and presentations, going through that and having these tools is amazing and I feel like it can really transform not just your educational experience, but it will come with you wherever you go. So I really love what I do. 

Cain: Lydia, you mentioned the IQP and the MQP, that's the Interactive Qualifying Project and the Major Qualifying Project. Those are, uh, some of our required projects for graduation here at WPI. Do you feel like there's a benefit to having recently gone through that experience just a few years ago to be able to help them with some of these specific challenges?

Tonani-Penha: Absolutely. I feel there is a tremendous benefit because I can uniquely understand what their routines are like as undergraduates at WPI. WPI is a unique environment, especially because we have terms instead of semesters typically for undergraduate students, and we have projects baked into our system through GPS, Great Problems Seminar, and all the other project-based learning experiences. I feel like I have the unique advantage of knowing what it's like to be a WPI student so I can help other WPI students as they go through the process themselves. 

Cain: Yeah, there's a lot of support the Sweet Center offers to WPI students, and we discussed a lot of that in depth in our first of our two episodes on teamwork. That episode was a conversation with Anne Ogilvie. She leads the Sweet Center and is the director for team learning at WPI. I encourage everyone to listen to that episode as well for a broad overview. But right now, I wanna focus in on one particular method the center uses. Lydia, there's a lot of tools that you can use to help students proactively plan for better teamwork. Do you have a favorite one that you like to use? 

Tonani-Penha: I do have a favorite one. In the Sweet Center, my favorite type of meeting and tool to use is the asset map. Um, broadly speaking, we can use it to help teams, especially when they meet for the first time before they have fully started their teamwork, so they can get a sense of not just what each of their skills are, but also, like, their background, if they have any passions or interests that contribute to the project. If they have a technical expertise that-- in a field that's related to the project and that could benefit them in the long term, or even if they have, like, coursework or other experiences that can contribute. That way you can not only see them for what they can bring to the table, but also you see the entirety of the individual and how they can mesh best together as a team.

Cain: That's really cool, and we're gonna spend some time sort of doing a deep dive on the asset map, because I think it's really fascinating, and it's really trying to get at that fuller understanding of the person. Why is that fuller understanding so valuable to this exercise? 

Tonani-Penha: That fuller understanding brings a lot of value because it can help you understand not only the person's strengths, but you can also understand constraints they may be dealing with outside. You can understand if they have unique challenges or interests that come into play. It also has the bonus that if you wish to have team bonding exercises, you can very much tailor them to what you want. 

Cain: It's a great reminder that teams are more than just the work that people put into it. And I'm excited because we have an asset map that you were so kind to bring here that you use in the Sweet Center, and I'm hoping that you can maybe walk me through these questions more specifically, and we can, uh, fill them out together. And for this exercise, I'm hoping that we could pretend that our project is, shocker, to produce a podcast episode about teamwork. Um, so why don't you help guide, uh, through this process as you do with the teams that you work with? I'm wondering, uh, where do we start? 

Tonani-Penha: All right. Typically, when I'm starting with a team for the first time, I do introductions. I go with name or with a major. And if you're off campus or you're working with your, like a company or a different type of project, I would go over name, the position you work in, and maybe a project you're currently working on with a different team, just to like bring a bit more context into the conversation. So if I were starting, I would say, "My name is Lydia, and I'm a materials science and engineering PhD candidate here at WPI, and a Sweet Center Fellow." Awesome. And in your case... 

Cain: Yeah, I'm Jon Cain. I'm a, a public relations manager at WPI, and basically what that means is trying to find the cool things that are happening on campus, and there are many- and encourage the external news media to, uh, cover, um, those things so we can get the word out about WPI and all the wonderful things happening here, and working with students, faculty, and staff to help them prepare for those media interviews, 'cause sometimes people get nervous when there's cameras and microphones around. So it's a lot of fun to sort of cheerlead, uh, the great things happening here and to give, uh, folks here a voice, um, and to spread the word about WPI. 

Tonani-Penha: Nice. I was going to transition into passions and interests, but I can already tell a little bit based on how you answered that you are very passionate about people seeing the amazing things that exist on campus, and you like to spread the word and help people succeed. Uh, so the next question- 

Cain: Very cool. 

Tonani-Penha: I would segue into is passions and interests. 

Cain: Yeah, so you've got like a number of different categories here, and we have this, this map- Mm ... and there's cool little bubbles, right? So off of passions and interests, there's a couple places where I can write some things in. So passions and interests, I am very passionate about travel and planning travel and, um, you know, watching sports is another one. And I didn't write this down earlier, but I should have, uh, or else my dog will, uh, bite me in the leg. I really love walking my, my dog. 

Tonani-Penha: Ah. That's awesome. In terms of my passions and interests that are not very project-related, I like to cook and bake for fun, and I really enjoy reading fiction and nonfiction, and I like tending to the flowers in my garden back home.

Cain: Very cool. You know, I love that you start this exercise with passions and interests because it's, like, opening up the space for me to, like, talk about myself as a person and not immediately feeling daunted by the task. So I don't know if that's intentional, but- 

Tonani-Penha: It is 

Cain: I appreciate it. All right. So the next category here you ask about is clubs, organizations, and sports. For myself, I have- am a sometimes member of our town's bicycling club, um, that goes out on Saturdays and- That's awesome ... Wednesdays and, and rides, and it's fun to meet people, and the best part of it is stopping for ice cream halfway through. 

Tonani-Penha: That's awesome, especially in the summer weather. That sounds fantastic.

Cain: What do you have listed? 

Tonani-Penha: I am part of two organizations on campus. One of them is Material Advantage. So I am vice president of Material Advantage, and in that organization, I help mechanical engineering students, materials science and engineering students, undergrads and graduates alike, to connect with professional organizations like TMS, uh, which is The Material Society, with the American Ceramic Society, with ASM, and with AIST, so they can have more connections professionally and also to provide them opportunities for funding to go to conferences, help them apply for scholarships. I want to provide resources so they can succeed. The other one is the Women in STEM Book Club. As I stated, I have passions and interests in reading, so having the chance to meet other women in STEM here at WPI who also love doing that is really fun. 

Cain: I'm getting a sense that you like building connections between people and supporting others wherever you can.

Tonani-Penha: Exactly, yes. 

Cain: What's next on our map? 

Tonani-Penha: Next on our map is technical expertise. Okay. So what areas do you have technical expertise in? 

Cain: Yeah, um, and I'm thinking specifically to this project. Um, I have experience audio editing, um, and also in publishing stories on the web through content management systems. 

Tonani-Penha: I added some more to mine as you were talking. In terms of technical expertise with my research as a PhD, I have materials science and engineering as my expertise and Martian geochemistry. 

Cain: Whoa. 

Tonani-Penha: So very- They overlap, but it is still a very... They're still very different among themselves. But related to this project and with media, I have experience with video editing, uh, taking pictures with a Sony camera that I invested a little bit to get, and I do website development.

Cain: Awesome. 

Tonani-Penha: So there is media and creativity related into that, but it's something I really enjoy doing. 

Cain: I see that you ask as well about, um, creative expression. I'm wondering, maybe define that for me and tell me a little bit about what you had on your list. 

Tonani-Penha: In the creative expression bubble, we can typically talk about creative expression for leisure, like if you're into theater, or you can use it if there's something you like to creatively bring to projects. In my case, I wrote the creative expression that I do in my personal time. I'm a musician, so I like to sing on a regular basis and I play musical instruments, specifically bass, guitar, violin, and piano, and I do creative writing on the side for fun. 

Cain: Awesome. 

Tonani-Penha: Fiction writing, specifically. 

Cain: Gotcha. Okay. Well, um, writing is, is one of mine also, um, as a great outlet, I think. Music, I appreciate music, but I probably couldn't keep a note, um, or read music. So if we need a theme song for this episode, I'm thinking you're the go-to. Uh, we'll sign you up to compose something. 

Tonani-Penha: That would be fun. Absolutely. 

Cain: What's next? 

Tonani-Penha: After the creative expression, I go into the personal and cultural backgrounds that somebody can have and bring to the table in terms of the project.

Cain: Gotcha. You know, I struggled with this one a little bit because I was like, "Well, I don't know what's relevant to this project," so I just kinda threw something down, um, that I grew up in New Hampshire and I'm one of two children. Again, not really sure if it's relevant to the team. 

Tonani-Penha: Yeah, I also struggled with this one. I had to do some digging and a little bit of soul-searching to find that one. On my end, I went back to the fact that I'm a first-generation student. This is something that really does come into play and is part of the reason I became a Sweet Fellow, because when I was going through the college experience, I didn't have many people in my direct network and direct support group that had personally gone through the journey that is going to college and getting the financial aid, applying for scholarships, figuring out the classes you need to take, how to manage things. I did not have someone to help me, so I had to find things out the hard way and do a lot of research. So, when I found out that there was a way for me to bring resources to other students, even if it's outside of teamwork, sometimes as a Sweet Fellow I also say, I also offer that if they wish to have more information on graduate school, on double majoring, how to design a minor, I can also answer those questions because those are things that I've experienced personally as a WPI student.

Cain: I can see as you talk about it that it means a ton to you and that it's sort of a, I don't know, would you say a mission? Um- 

Tonani-Penha: Mm-hmm ... 

Cain: And I'm also thinking to myself that this is a passion that would be very important to tap into, um, for our project, uh, to talk about that personal experience. It's not just an academic exercise.

Tonani-Penha: Yeah, exactly. That's the beauty of the asset map. It gets you thinking, and it can help you bring these aspects of your personality, of your background to light, and that can help inform how you approach the project. The other personal and cultural background, uh, item that I have is that I have Brazilian heritage. I don't stereotypically look Brazilian, but my family, both mother and father, were born in Brazil, and I lived there for eight years of my life, so I ended up learning Portuguese and Spanish in school. So I am multilingual as a result.

Cain: A citizen of the world. 

Tonani-Penha: Yes. 

Cain: I'm sorry about the World Cup, by the way.

Tonani-Penha: Oh, we... Yeah. Well, we were happy that Spain won. If it couldn't be Brazil, Spain is one of the world's best teams, so we looked at the victorious team and we were like, "Yeah, you, you earned it, for sure." 

Cain: On our map here, we've got three more categories to go. I see team and project skills you're asking about. So for that, I wrote down planning and mentoring, helping others sort of- along the way who are learning, uh, different aspects of the project. I enjoy doing that. I have some experience and skill doing that as well. 

Tonani-Penha: On my end, I have hosting consultations and/or interviewing people as part of a project. In the past, when I was working on previous projects, I had to interview other individuals who were actively working in the food pantry’s area in Worcester so we could establish best practices for the food pantry we were assisting. The other one is I have experience with project presentations. As a PhD student, that is something you have to hone a lot of the time. So I feel that being able to present and host consultations and interview collaborators can help with the hosting a podcast about projects. 

Cain: This is really interesting to note, and like a little light bulb's going off in my head already about your interviewing experience. Like, I always love to have people look at the questions that I think of and collaborate on them, so it's great to know that you have a background doing that, um, and it gives me great confidence that together we can shape the questions and the conversation and make it really effective, so. 

Tonani-Penha: Definitely.

Cain: Awesome. What's next? 

Tonani-Penha: Both of the last two bubbles are related. One of them is related coursework and jobs. 

Cain: Okay. 

Tonani-Penha: And the one after that, which is the last one, is relevant experiences. For me, related coursework is some of the undergraduate courses I took, which would be like the, the technical writing course and the research methods and writing course. When I was an undergrad, those helped me really get into the mindset of research writing and research methods, which is really good, and it helps inform some of my consultations depending on what the project's deliverables are with the undergraduate students and with the graduate students. The other job experience I have, as stated before, I'm a Sweet Center fellow.

Cain: Mm-hmm. 

Tonani-Penha: So I have, as, which segues a little bit into relevant experience, I have training, uh, as part of the Sweet Center that helps me become qualified to consult with teams. We have a whole semester of training before we start at the Sweet Center

Cain: Very cool. Um, on my list, related coursework and jobs, um, I have, um, history as a newscast producer for radio and television, so writing newscasts.

Tonani-Penha: That's awesome. 

Cain: And then, um, media relations for the last three years here at WPI, so... And then on relevant experiences, I have a lot of experience conducting interviews and also talking with our faculty and staff to get to know, like, what they're working on. Um, and then I have experience, obviously, for anybody that's followed the show, um, writing and hosting podcasts, so. Um, one other aspect of the asset mapping worksheet I wanna ask you about before maybe I get your assessment on, um, what this all means for our project: The asset map has a category where, uh, where you ask for three areas that a person wants to grow in. Mm-hmm. Um, I would say one is that I want to get some more experience in planning press conferences. Another, I guess, would be storytelling skills. 

Tonani-Penha: For me, presentation preparation and interviewing subjects are the two in- areas that I wish to grow more in. Even though I have experience in these areas, I feel like there are so many tools that are constantly showing up and that are getting updated over time, and you need to be able to stay on top of these things.

Cain: It's interesting that you mention those because I was like, "Wait, Lydia said that she had experience in those." But you explained very well that you can see further growth upon existing skills. So I'm really curious, our asset maps are filled out full, and I'm really curious what you do, um, as a Sweet Center fellow once the team has come in and they've filled out the asset map. How can a team use all this information to plan out their project? 

Tonani-Penha: Typically, when I meet with teams before the asset map begins, as we've done earlier, we discussed what our project was about. Sometimes as I am talking about the asset map, I point out areas of interest in their background or in their passions and interests category that can overlap with the project's needs. As what happened in your case, you pointed out that my first-generation student motivations led me to be interested and invested in the Sweet Center. So that is one thing that I actually do in my meetings, which you inadvertently did- ... while you were listening to me explain things. That's, like, the beauty of the asset map. It brings these things to light- and in a way that is obvious and effective. And one of the other things I do is based on these things, on the results of the asset map, I ask if they have any areas in the project that they would like to focus on more. Sometimes the areas of growth inform how people should collaborate. If there is a person who has expertise, technical expertise, or relevant experiences or even relevant related coursework and jobs in the areas involved in the project, but there's another person that wants to grow in these areas, then I encourage collaboration between them when they're splitting the work. If somebody has leadership roles in the past, uh, and they typically assume a leadership role, but there's somebody who wants to develop that skill, I encourage that they work together so that one person exercises the skills they already have while somebody else comes into play and helps them out. Same thing goes for communicators, interviewers, and other roles that you can have in the project, note-takers, and so on. So that's kind of how I approach the asset map. I help them see where they can collaborate, how they can collaborate, and sometimes I take it a step further and ask if there are any ground rules they would like to set up on their team charter later on, which is going to likely be the next assignment they do in their class if they're at WPI. Or if they're in a company, they need to set their ground rules ahead of time. They might not necessarily even use a team, a team charter document, but engineers use the term ground rules and assumptions when we're setting up our systems. With teamwork, we want less assumptions and more ground rules, because the less you have to assume, the less miscommunication you have, the less issues with deadlines you have, and that can increase their productivity, but also your efficiency and your effectiveness as a team.

Cain: That sounds great. So you're really facilitating a conversation with the team to sort of process these things. Thanks for walking through the asset map. I had a couple thoughts on it as, as we were going through it. I thought to myself, "Okay, you mentioned video editing as something that you've done some work on. So, if we ever needed to do, like, video reels or snippets of the episode, I would be happy to have you take on the lead on that project, because that, like, stresses me out." And then I saw other opportunities for collaboration, like we talked about making sure both of us could go over the questions. And then for me, just being able to soak up as much knowledge from you as a Sweet Center Fellow is something that jumped off the page, as like we just really need to dive in on that is another thing that I thought of. So were there other things that jumped out at you for how we might structure the project? 

Tonani-Penha: Another one that I believe would be an interesting point of collaboration would be if there were any resources that could be shared on a website where the podcast is posted or published, that would be great, because this asset map, it was made by WPI professors Stoddard and Pfeifer. This was made in-house, and if other people off campus and companies or nonprofits or other students on campus find this information and they want to implement it in their teams, or even come to the Sweet Center to work on this with us, it would be fantastic. I believe there is magic in the asset map experience, and I believe it can really be a game changer when it comes to starting up a team project.

Cain: Yeah. I've really enjoyed this process, and you make a really good point, and the great news is, if you wanna see what the asset map looks like and consider using it for yourself, I encourage folks to check out our show notes for the episode. We'll have a link to the Sweet Center webpage where you can view an asset map template. And you mentioned, uh, the WPI professors involved in the asset map. That's, uh, uh, Lisa Stoddard and Geoff Pfeifer. I've been really enthusiastic and optimistic after doing this exercise, a little less, um, nervous about going into teamwork. That said, there's a little voice back in, in my head that says, "You know what? Teamwork can still be really tough sometimes." And I'm wondering, from your perspective, having worked with so many individuals and teams, what are some of the most common issues that teams struggle with in your experience? 

Tonani-Penha: The top two that I see are miscommunications and issues with deadlines. Sometimes people just come to the Sweet Center for, for mediation when it comes to conflict resolution, and conflict doesn't even need to be a fight. It can even be just a minor disagreement in creative views regarding your project Or it could be issues with miscommunication, and that is one of the things that a team charter, a different document we have, is really good for, also known as a team contract. We use it so we can establish, oh, what are the expected windows of response do you have? Is there a specific amount of time that you're designating for your work? Is there, are you expected to respond within two hours? Are, is there an expectation to have a vote when you are having issues, like regarding different views on the project? Typically, when you're working on a team charter, you outline what you would like to use as a conflict resolution method. Those are things that we at the Sweet Center help with typically, aside from just mediation. We can help teams develop team charters for themselves to prevent this miscommunication issue, and this also ties in to the other issue that I see most: deadlines.

Cain: Ah. It's a scary word. 

Tonani-Penha: Yeah. People have different working styles. That is something that doesn't always come up in an asset map, but this is a question that I can ask during the asset map to help inform what we're going to do later on in the team charter if they so decide to work on it with us. In these cases, some people like to wait until the last minute.

Cain: Not me. 

Tonani-Penha: Me neither. I feel anxious just thinking about waiting- until the last minute

Cain: Yeah .... Yep, same. 

Tonani-Penha: I am the type of person who likes to start working on things at the latest, depending on when it was assigned, a week in advance. I like to have the time to brainstorm how I wanna structure a document. I like to have the time to figure out how I want to make my visuals for the document, if it has to have visuals. And as a PhD student, you need to get good visuals for your charts to convey your data. So sometimes I have to color code things. Sometimes I need to make sure the markers aren't too jarring for the eye, and that can take time. And some people don't do that. Some people wait until it's 11:59 to submit a document.

Cain: Yep, and they're on the same team, so how, how does that work out? 

Tonani-Penha: Yeah. One thing I like to do is if a team has those different working styles together, I like to suggest that they make a deadline before the deadline, but that deadline before the deadline is for completing the document. Any time you have after that, that's for editing. For example, you wanna finish your document a day before it's due. Okay. As a team, if you agree on doing that, everybody has submitted their parts of the deliverable and has it all set up, and it's the brute product, let's say that. And then after that, you edit it and make sure if there's any typos, issues in formatting, that's when you tackle that. That way you have time to deliver a polished product instead of a rushed product. And that deadline before the deadline then can occasionally, I'm gonna say mentally trick people, but it's a deliberate decision to choose a deadline for yourself that you can meet. So if it's 11:59 on your designated deadline, it's still technically early. So that is a way around that problem that I've suggested, and it has worked with several teams. Communication is crucial. Again, we want more ground rules and less assumptions. The less you have to assume in teamwork, the better. If you're dealing with a project that is longer, the sooner you get those ground rules down, the better.

Cain: You've given us a ton of really valuable information today that I think can help teams. Um, and you've talked a lot about the tools and your work at the Sweet Center. I wanna ask you maybe a more personal question about, what do you really enjoy most about being a Sweet Center fellow and working with student teams to improve their teamwork? What, uh, what excites you about it? 

Tonani-Penha: I kind of gave an answer to this a little bit earlier as part of the asset map. Again, the beauty of it, it brings all the background information to light- for a person. I was a first-generation student. My parents hadn't gone to college, and I was one of the first people in my family to go to college in America, so completely different situation. Um, there were a lot of cultural differences, too, that I had to navigate because of my schooling in Brazil. So when I came to the United States and I had to figure out financial aid, when I had to figure out how to schedule my courses at WPI, or applying for scholarships, figuring out how to design a minor, figuring out what the difference between double majoring and doing a BS/MS, bachelor's/master's pathway, four plus one, as other universities call it, I needed to figure all these things out by myself or figure out who I could talk to to be able to figure these things out. And as a Sweet Center fellow, I believe that I can help with teamwork to make their experience better so they can have these tools, but I can also give them other resources and help connect them with people who know about these resources regarding the university experience as an undergraduate student or a graduate student. Because my motivation to keep doing this is to be the person for them that I wish I had when I was starting this, being someone they can ask for resources or ask questions, and they can, if they don't know the answer, point them in the right direction. Because even if the answer is, "I don't know, but I know someone who does know the answer," that is already a change. It already helps have a net improvement in where you are in your journey, I suppose. 

Cain: That's so well said. Lydia, I'm wondering if you could leave us with some closing thoughts for folks listening who may be thinking about teamwork and might still feel a little bit scared or nervous or daunted by the prospect about how they should maybe approach this from a mindset perspective.

Tonani-Penha: The only thing I believe that I would add is that teamwork is what you make of it. That is something that many people forget when they're working on team projects, is that they have the power to change their experience. Sometimes people may feel trapped or cornered partially due to the deadlines. It can create a sense of pressure and urgency, but at the end of the day, you are part of a team and your team has control over the situation. You can change your approach. You can change your communication style. You can change your ground rules if you have to. You can vote on your creative views to make sure that you're not clashing, and you can talk to each other to make sure that your views on the project are the same or that you're all on the same page. You have power to change your experience and you have the ability to make the most of what you have. Because at the end of the day, people on teams, they're not just their skills. They're not just numbers. They're people. We as individuals, we can communicate and we are creative. So, I believe that if we put our minds to it and decide to make the most of our experience, I know for a fact it is possible. I've seen it done and teamwork, when it's done right, is exceptional, which is part of the reason I decided to be part of the Sweet Center. 

Cain: I love it. It's a very hopeful message and, uh, Lydia, I wanna thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today on the WPI Podcast. It's been a pleasure. 

Tonani-Penha: It's been a pleasure for me, too. Thank you so much for the invite. I always enjoy talking about teamwork because it is, it's exceptional. I feel like I've said that a lot, but it is true. 

Cain: Lydia Ellen Tonani-Penha is a PhD student in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. If you'd like to learn more about project-based learning at WPI, check out wpi.edu. We'll have links to a lot of what we talked about in the show notes, and I wanna thank you for listening and invite you to follow The WPI Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. You'll also find us on wpi.edu/listen. On that page, you'll find other podcasts from across campus and WPI News On The Go. That's a collection of audio versions of stories about our students, faculty, and staff. You can keep up on anything happening at WPI by asking Alexa to open WPI. This podcast is produced at the WPI Global Lab in the Innovation Studio. My thanks to PhD candidate Varun Bhat for the audio engineering help on today's episode. Please join us next time for another episode of The WPI Podcast. I'm Jon Cain. Talk to you soon.