Four current Illinois State University students from the Department of Physics are interning this summer with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) through the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) program.
Designed for undergraduate students and recent graduates with majors in a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) field or in science policy, students are mentored by a leading science expert who is their guide in a specific research area. These are paid, 10-week internships during the summer, or they run for a full semester during the fall and spring.
Every year, students from all over the country participate at one of 17 DOE sites. This year’s SULI interns from Illinois State are Lylia Gomez, Alexander Hardaway, Quinn Mackenzie, and Robert Sevik.
Lylia Gomez, who begins her senior year in the fall, is assigned to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington. She’s working as a computational biology intern contributing to the improvement of Cryo-electron tomography data segmentation using deep-learning based software packages. The work, she said, will allow for increased visualization and understanding of host-pathogen interactions at the molecular level.
Her classmate (and fellow SULI intern), Argonne Student STEM ambassador Quinn Mackenzie encouraged Physics Club members to apply to the SULI program.
“So, I did,” Gomez said. “I applied to two labs on the West Coast and got an interview and offer from my first choice.”
Gomez said that Physics 108 during her freshman year with Dr. Epaminondas Rosa is what sparked her interest in a career in physics. She said the guidance of Rosa and Dr. Daniel Holland, along with the University’s FIREbird program, allowed her to pursue her research interests and develop as a scientist over the summer of 2023. Her goal is to enroll in a Ph.D. program in computational biophysics or a related field after graduation. She wants to pursue a career in computational research or academia.
The best aspect of the SULI internship, Gomez said, is working with a variety of highly skilled scientists and expanding her knowledge in different research areas.
“I also really enjoy hiking on the weekends,” she said.
Alexander Hardaway will begin his final year at Illinois State in the fall as he pursues two degrees—one in physics and the other in computational physics.
Hardaway’s internship is at Argonne National Laboratory’s Advanced Photon Source where he has joined a group that recently upgraded their detector to one that is capable of doing something called “double-gating.”
“Essentially their old data analysis software called Pymca was unable to read the data that this detector produces,” Hardaway said. “So, I am building a digital interface that my group and other groups who do similar projects will be able to use to process double-gated data.”
Hardaway said his most influential professors have been Dr. Matt Caplan, Dr. Neil Christensen, Dr. Uttam Manna, and Dr. Q Charles Su.
Interestingly, his family ties to Illinois State run deep beginning with his mother, Marina Harris-Hardaway ’17, M.S.N. ’19, DNP ’22. She is an instructional assistant professor in the Mennonite College of Nursing. In addition, his siblings, twins Emily and Arthur, are both class of 2023 graduates in medical lab sciences.
Hardaway plans to pursue a master’s in a computational-related degree (likely data analysis) and then enter the workforce. His favorite part of the SULI internship involves colleagues and sports.
“The best thing about this internship is meeting new people,” he said. “And I’ve played a lot of volleyball.”
Quinn Mackenzie will begin the fall semester as a senior physics teacher education major. This is his second summer as a SULI intern.
“During the school year, I worked as a student STEM ambassador for the SULI program where my job was to spread the word about U.S. Department of Energy programs like SULI,” Mackenzie said. “Last summer, I was the only ISU physics student working at Argonne National Labs, and there are three of us here this year.”
Mackenzie has returned to the 3D printing lab where he interned last summer.
“We 3D print solar receivers and heat exchangers for concentrating solar power plants,” he said. “We use computer modeling to see how our materials act under the extreme heat and pressures.”
Mackenzie said he’s had great support at Illinois State. Kenneth Wester, his advisor and physics education professor, got special mention for offering advice and helping open doors to new opportunities.
One highlight of his internship has been meeting new people, including his lab’s director.
“I thought to myself, ‘I bet nobody emails the lab director and asks to meet him for lunch.’ I was right,” Mackenzie said. “But to my surprise, he said yes, and we had a great lunch. I learned a lot about how the lab is run, and I was able to share the intern perspective with him as well.”
Senior Robert Sevik is majoring in physics and computational physics and minoring in math. For his internship at Argonne National Laboratory, he’s working on cathodoluminescence and fluorescence measurements of quantum shell colloidal nanocrystals.
For the cathodoluminescence work, he uses a scanning electron microscope to shoot a concentrated beam of electrons to detect light emission spectra. For measuring fluorescence, he uses a Raman microscope and fluorimeter.
“I fire a UV laser at the sample to see what light it emits in visible and infrared,” Sevik said. “The work is a possible candidate for addressing problems with scintillators, which detect ionizing radiation by emitting low-energy UV, visible, or infrared light, which are used in homeland security and medical imaging.”
Faculty members Dr. Uttam Manna and Dr. Mahua Biswas had great influence on Sevik, especially in securing his internship.
“I thank them for the opportunity to research with them for the last three academic years,” Sevik said. “The skills I’ve acquired working with them were instrumental in my selection for this internship.
“These two professors helped me with the application process and submitted letters of recommendation on my behalf, for which I am very grateful.”
He’s not the first or last of the Sevik family to attend Illinois State. His father, Edward Sevik ’88, studied economics, and his younger brother, Daniel, is studying computer science.
“The best part of the internship has been networking, meeting a lot of brilliant people, and collaborating with them,” he said.
