Summer Student Activities

- L. Dunn

Active programs for college students during the summer have long been a tradition at SSRL, and this summer was no exception. Students come to SSRL from a number of sources. Some are directed here through recommendations from faculty or staff members; many come through the Summer Internships in Science and Engineering, an eight-week program run by SLAC for students traditionally under-represented in science careers or other formal programs. This summer SSRL hosted a great group of young people who accomplished a lot in the time they spent here.

Helmut Wiedemann took three of the students under his scientific wing: Keith Marshall, Nhu-An Vo, and Michelle Wazari.

These students spent their summer at SUNSHINE working with Stanford graduate students. They participated in several activities including the installation of a beam emittance monitor, femto second pulse length measurement, measurements and data reduction on a single pass FEL and absorption spectroscopy in the far infrared regime using a Michelson interferometer. For all three, actually performing hands-on experiments with a linear accelerator electron beam for the first time was an exciting experience.

Keith Marshall will be a senior at the University of Virginia this fall, majoring in physics and mathematics. His long-term academic goal is a Ph.D. in physics specializing in quantum gravity. Keith specifically applied to SLAC to get some exposure to atomic physics. He anticipated that he would find the far infrared spectrum work being done by Helmut's group interesting. Keith found the firsthand experience of working with a research team very enlightening and felt that he improved his hands-on techniques and computer skills.

Nhu-An Vo is also majoring in physics and mathematics and will be returning to Santa Clara University as a senior. She said that she chose the SLAC program for an internship because it offers lecture programs as well as direct experience in laboratory science. She was also attracted to the idea of being able to work on her own project. Nhu-An hoped that her summer program would help her decide on whether or not to pursue a career in physics research. She now feels that she has a much more realistic picture of what research really is. She stated that "she felt that the environment here at SLAC was supportive and encouraging, that she met a lot of nice people and that she felt that SLAC's scientists and administrators really cared."

Michelle Waziri is a combined science major (biology, chemistry, and physics) at the University of Santa Clara who will be a senior this fall. Michelle wanted to do her internship locally and was attracted to the program here. She said that she was happily surprised to be accepted because of her interest in the application of physics to biological research. She felt she learned a lot more about physics this summer than she has to this point as a pre-med/pre-law student.

All three of Helmut's summer science students agreed that the program gives a much more realistic picture of what it takes to earn a Ph.D. than they were able to get at their home institutions.

Graham George supervised Andre Kirwan's work on human sulfite oxidase. Andre is a pre-med student who just finished his BA in human biology at Stanford. During the coming fall he will be playing his final season of football, and in the spring he will be finishing up his research projects and preparing for the MCAT. His goal is to successfully apply to medical school. Andre stated: "This has been a fantastic experience. Graham has really taken me under his wing and taught me a lot about not just what goes on here, but also about chemistry and science in general. Britt Hedman was also very helpful."

Alex Morgan came to us from Brandeis University where he will be a junior in physics and math this fall. Alex wanted to work at a site with a particle accelerator. He said he was aware of the important science being done with accelerators but had never seen one. He reported that the projects he was involved with this summer included a wide range of activities such as testing the photocathode gun, cleaning parts, building circuits, and testing magnets, as well as carpentry, machining, and plumbing. This was Alex's first time in California. He had a great time and said he especially appreciated the opportunity to meet scientists and take tours of places such as NASA Ames.

Julius Rice joined us for the summer after completing his master's degree in Electrical Engineering at Clemson University in South Carolina. Julius was assigned to an internship at SLAC through the GEM program, which places recent graduates in laboratories throughout the country. Darius Mostowfi guided Julius' work this summer. The work Julius reports being involved in included analyzing and modeling power supplies and condensing the work into computer programs to generate models for simulating tests and building prototype power supplies for actuators. Julius felt that Darius was very helpful and that overall he had a very good experience.

Bryan St. George is a senior in aerospace engineering at the University of Maryland. This summer, Bryan worked with Roger Carr, and helped to get a CERN program called ZGOUBI up and running. ZGOUBI is capable of calculating trajectories of particles in magnetic fields and is a very accurate and mature code. Bryan was able to get the program operating in an Alpha/UNIX environment and ran some simple tests of undulator trajectories. Bryan reported that he thought the experience was really fun, a lot of work, and occasionally a bit hectic.

The orbit feedback group hired David Korus from the University of Idaho for a period of eight weeks this past summer. David is entering his junior year in computer science and aspires to develop computer games, particularly the medieval action/adventure interactive type. Under Jeff Corbett's direction, David programmed micro-computers to interact with data input/output devices for the orbit feedback system. In addition, David developed prototype code for a dedicated digital signal processor board. His main lesson? Communicating with i/o boards is much like communicating with the screen for computer game graphics applications!

Corey Gray, a senior at Humboldt University majoring in physics and applied math, worked under Heinz-Dieter Nuhn's guidance on computer simulation for LCLS this summer. Corey applied for an internship at SLAC in the hopes of getting an opportunity to experience physics and math in a "real world" setting. Upon graduation, Corey hopes to apply his degree in either a research or industrial setting. As a long-term goal he wants to return to his tribal reserve in Siksika, Alberta to teach high school math and science -hoping to give something back to the community that has funded his college education.

We wish these students the best of luck and hope that their experience at SSRL this summer proves to be a positive influence as they pursue their varied career goals.

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December 2, 1996