Derek Stein was a post-doctoral research in the Molecular Biophysics group of Cees Dekker at the Delft University of Technology, where I studied the properties of DNA polymers and ionic fluids confined to nanofluidic channels (2003-2006). My Ph.D. thesis research was performed in the group of Jene Golovchenko at Harvard University, where I was involved in making the first solid state nanopores, and then using them to study individual DNA molecules. This was a joint project with the Molecular Biology group of Daniel Branton (1997-2002). After my Ph.D. I spent three months in the Life Science Technologies Laboratory at Agilent Technologies transferring nanopore technology to them by developing an industrial ion-beam-sculpting apparatus (2002).