Lab Welcomes Summer Interns, In Person
If you have noticed a few more people onsite, some looking a little lost, you may have guessed that this year’s summer interns have arrived.
Orientation for this year’s 101 Workforce Development & Education (WD&E) interns took place on June 5 with a kickoff event. The interns, who hail from all across the U.S., are undergraduates, post baccalaureates, graduates, and faculty from many disciplines, and from many different institutions, including minority-serving institutions and community colleges. These interns are in good company; in the past five years, there have been a total of 631 WD&E interns who have contributed to research in support of the DOE mission. These programs are funded by the Office of Science’s Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists (WDTS) and STEM partners.
Through the internship programs, WD&E staff work to inspire and prepare the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists, and STEM professionals. With the support of mentors at the Lab, they develop their scientific identity, experience what it’s like to work in a STEM career, and work alongside exceptional minds in science.
Sarah Feng, who was a Community College Internship (CCI) program intern in 2021 and who subsequently became a student assistant at the Lab from early 2022 to spring of 2023, is now conducting epidemiology research through the NIH’s Summer Internship Program (SIP). She said, “As a community college student, it’s difficult to find research opportunities because most of our professors are not actively involved in research. The internship at Berkeley Lab is paid, which made it feasible for me as a low-income student, and my research mentor, Neslihan Taş, was amazingly supportive and invested in my well-being and academic journey.”
“This internship experience gave me the courage to apply to the NIH internship program, where I’ve been fortunate to pursue my interest in research involving human health and the environment,” she continued. “I’m grateful that I was able to be a part of the internship program at Berkeley Lab; it’s been integral to my decision to pursue grad school in the future.”
In-Person, Finally
This year is the first summer since 2019 that WD&E internships have been in person.
“It’s really wonderful to be back in person again,” said Colette Flood, Director of WD&E at the Lab. “So much of building and fortifying the STEM community is about personal interactions, which are richer when they are in-person, not just for the interns, but for the Lab volunteers and mentors.”
Lab Staff Sign up to Mentor Interns
Each of the interns has a mentor at the Lab. This year, more than 150 researchers and staff are acting as mentors, teaching valuable technical and research skills, providing guidance and showing interns what it’s like to work at a national lab.
Teams at Berkeley Lab, in both Scientific and Operations Divisions, benefit from the help that the interns provide. In fact, WD&E has been working with Division partners to develop programs that meet their workforce needs. For example, Lab researchers needed additional help for their projects related to carbon storage, water quality, climate modeling, and remote sensing in the Earth & Environmental Sciences Area; and on projects related to genomics, microbiology, bioengineering, and spectroscopy in the Biosciences Area. So, WD&E shared these requests with eligible colleges and universities and while recruiting at national conferences. In total, 40 appropriate candidates with backgrounds in biology, chemistry, computer science, environmental science, and mathematics were recruited to work in these two Division Areas this summer. Of these, eight are faculty members from colleges and universities that don’t engage in a lot of research.
Neslihan Taş, a researcher in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area’s Climate & Ecosystems Division and winner of the WD&E Outstanding Mentors Award in the fall of 2021 (she was mentor to Sarah Feng, mentioned above), believes that internships provide interns with crucial learning moments. “On a personal level, the biggest reward of my efforts as a mentor is to learn when my interns were able to get jobs they wanted or further their education (in part) because of the skills they acquired in my lab. I am even more proud, when interns want to stay in Berkeley Lab to further their projects.”
Julio Jaramillo Salcido, Special Projects Analyst for WD&E, said, “If you are a researcher or staff and think you may be willing to mentor an intern in the future, please contact us. We’re always looking for Berkeley Lab staff who are willing to share their career trajectory and help interns develop their scientific identity and career.”
The internship programs culminate in a poster session on Wednesday, August 9, where interns will present their research findings. The session will be virtual to allow more guests – parents and friends across the nation, stakeholders in D.C., colleagues at other institutions, and future potential interns – to recognize and applaud the work of this year’s summer internship cohort.
Add the virtual intern poster session to your calendar.
Visit the WD&E program website for more information.