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SULI Students Here for the Summer
By Monica Bobra
Twenty-seven undergraduate science, math and engineering students from
around the country are roaming about SLAC’s campus this summer. They’re
part of an 8-week long Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships (SULI)
program that runs from Monday, June 20 to August 20. The interns will
populate all of the research facilities at SLAC, according to program
manager Helen Quinn (THP), who works with program director James
Lindesay (HR).
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SULI students
Isabella Griffin (Norfolk State University), Marissa Cevallos
(California Institute of Technology), Elizabeth Rivers
(Wellesley University) and Matt George (Harvard University).
(Photo provided by
Isabella Griffin) |
In addition to
conducting research with a mentor, preparing a formal report—and having
a shot of publishing it in the DOE’s Journal of Undergraduate
Research—the students tour local high-tech industries, attend guest
lectures and live together on Stanford University’s campus.
Though the
DOE-sponsored SULI program is in its fifth year, SLAC has been
recruiting interns for the past thirty years. The selection committee
looks for applicants under-represented in the physics community—such as
minorities, women and students from little-known colleges. “At the
25-year reunion, people said the program literally changed their lives,”
said Quinn. The strength of the program, she says, is the student’s
research experience. “It lets them see how scientists actually work as
opposed to how you learn science in school.”
SSRL physicist Uwe
Bergmann (ESRD), who is hosting his second SULI student, said mentors
also learn a lot from the program. “If they ask good questions, you
realize how poorly you understand things,” said Bergmann. “You also
realize what a highly specialized, tiny little domain you work in. You
could talk to them and say a sentence in which they don’t understand
seven out of the eight words you say. It makes you think about how to
express yourself.” |
