Paul H. Axelsen

Paul Axelsen has been a member of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania for 30 years, where he runs a research laboratory that focuses on understanding how drugs work, and how to design new ones. The work requires him to create, modify, and repair machines in the lab, and he carries those skills into his woodworking hobby. He especially enjoys building furniture with uncommon angles, hidden hardware, moving parts, and mixed materials. His work with a scanning electron microscope led him to wonder what it would reveal about the process of sanding. It turned out to be an ideal tool for viewing the texture of a sanded surface and evaluating popular techniques.