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SULI Students Celebrate a
Summer of Physics
By Shawne Neeper
SLAC students in the DOE’s Summer
Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) program celebrated the close
of their eight-week experience in hands-on research with hamburgers and
sunshine at the Sector 6 picnic area on August 13. The 25 physics and
engineering undergraduates received their SULI certificates with a word
and a handshake. Each took a photo with his or her SLAC mentor, to
commemorate a summer filled with scientific and social adventures.
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SULI interns (left to right)
Joseph Piacentine, Kevin Reynolds and Rebekah Schiller with SULI
Program Director Roberto Vega. (Photo by Diana Rogers) |
The luncheon concluded with the
presentation of the 10th annual Ernest Coleman Award for Scholarship and
Citizenship. The award is named for SLAC physicist Ernest Coleman, who
helped develop the SLAC Summer Science Program—a predecessor to SULI—to
encourage minority and less-advantaged students to pursue science
careers. This year’s interns nominated their peer Kevin Reynolds, for
his enthusiasm and hard work with his mentor, x-ray spectroscopist Uwe
Bergmann (SSRL).
To help Bergmann evaluate new equipment
from different vendors, Reynolds set up lasers and performed experiments
comparing spectrograph mirrors on the SSRL floor. The mirrors will be
used in novel x-ray techniques to study light elements including water
and protein catalysts. “It was extremely useful,” Bergmann said. “We
have now made a large order of mirrors based on his analysis.” This
fall, Reynolds is entering his sophomore year at Norfolk University.
Reynolds and the other students presented
their projects as papers and 20-minute talks, in the days leading up to
their closing picnic.
“This year’s students really got to work
fast, and seemed to get a lot out of their summer here,” said SULI
Program Manager Helen Quinn (THP). “About half of them were able to stay
on an extra week after the official program end, a possibility we have
been able to offer only in the last two years. The program is all too
short for most projects, so the extra week is appreciated by both
students and mentors.”
During their stay at SLAC, the students
lived in a cooperative house on Stanford University’s fraternity row
with SULI Program Director Roberto Vega (THP). On summer leave from
Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Vega pursued Higgs
phenomenology by day and addressed student needs—from fielding physics
questions to promoting kitchen clean up—by night.
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Shown left to right: Roberto
Vega (THP) and Jonathan Dorfan (DO) present SULI intern Kevin
Reynolds with the Ernest Coleman award. (Photo by Diana Rogers) |
“It’s fun,” Vega said. “It’s challenging.”
He arranged talks by SLAC physicists each week, and organized SULI field
trips to Lick Observatory, the Stanford Medical School MRI facility and
the Stanford physics department. He also encouraged an informal SULI
social calendar of impromptu outings to local salsa clubs and weekend
climbing expeditions.
The SULI program provides science and
engineering internship opportunities at twelve DOE facilities. A tour
last summer made SLAC the first choice of 27-year old Chico State
University senior Joe Piacentine (KIPAC). “I wanted to explore what
graduate school might be like,” he said, “and explore astrophysics or
particle physics.” This summer, Piacentine learned to use custom
software to analyze the telescope data for objects that had not been
seen before, and ascertain which were likely to be clusters of galaxies.
“This has really gotten me excited about
going to graduate school,” said Rebekah Schiller (SCS), who will be a
senior at Oglethorpe University this fall. During a SULI field trip to
the Stanford University physics department, Schiller accepted an
invitation to share a day in the life of a physics graduate student. She
spent a day learning about a thesis project and helped solder research
equipment.
The SULI interns have now returned to
their colleges, hopefully with new inspiration and aspirations.
For more information on the program, see:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/gen/edu/undergraduate.html
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