Introduction
These research experiences for undergraduates (REU) opportunities and internships past North Park physics and engineering students have held will give you an idea of the kind of internships available for our majors. As with all research internships, however, the sky's the limit! Pursue what you're called to!
Name, North Park graduation year, REU/internship program, project topic, position title, and any resulting publications are listed. (Content is continuing to be added.)
1986–87 Fall
- Mary R. Janosi C'87:
- Program: Undergraduate Internship Program, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Ill.
- Project: High Energy Physics Division, Polarized Proton Target (PPT) Group. Assisted in the analysis of data taken from the Zero Gradient Synchrotron (ZGS) in the 1970's, to clarify a discrepancy between two sets of experimental data. Learned about the PPT Group's new experiment to investigate spin dependence by measuring the difference in total cross-section between proton-proton and proton-pbar with helicities of target beam parallel and antiparallel, under construction at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory's Meson Polarized Beam Facility and Experimental Hall.
1990–91 Spring
- Andrew Wig C'91:
- Program: U.S. Department of Energy Science and Engineering Research Semester, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Ill.
- Project: Assisted in the development of a polarized deuterium target that used spin exchange optical pumping in the Medium Energy Physics department.
1991 Summer
- Andrew Wig C'91:
- Continued internship from Spring 1990–91.
1997 Summer
- Nate Leafgren C'99:
- Program: Indiana University REU program, Indiana University Cyclotron Facility.
- Project: Construction and Implementation of a Segmented Neutron Detector.
1998 Summer
- Nate Leafgren C'99:
- University of Connecticut REU program.
- Project: Numerical Calculation of the Probability of the Two-Color Photoassociation for Creating a Molecular Bose-Einstein Condensate.
2001 Summer
- Robin Trautman C'01:
- Program: Seagate Technology.
- Project: 3D Modeling of the Magnetoresistive Recording Head.
2002 Summer
- Anne Hawkinson C'04:
- Program: Center on Polymer Interfaces and Macromolecular Assemblies (CPIMA), Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE), Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.
- Project: Shear Properties of Polymer Crystals at Liquid-Liquid Interfaces.
- Publication (secondary author): A transition in dynamic behavior and oscillatory melting in particle monolayers at a liquid-liquid interface subjected to shear flow, The Journal of Rheology, Jan/Feb 2004.
- Mary Bridget Kustusch C'04
- Program: Nanoscale Science & Engineering Center (NSEC) REU, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill.
- Project: Mechanical Properties of Nanocoils.
2003 Summer
- Anne Hawkinson C'04:
- Program: Nanoscale Science & Engineering Center (NSEC) REU, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill.
- Project: Theoretical Studies to Predict the Unknown Optical Properties of Silver Nanoparticles.
- Publication (first author): The influence of particle-particle interactions, size, and shape on the optical properties of silver nanoparticles, Nanoscape, 2004.
- Mary Bridget Kustusch C'04:
- Program: Physics Education Research REU, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Ill.
- Project: Assessing Physics 100 Using a Self Evaluation Exam.
2004 Summer
- David Fisher C'05:
- Program: Summer Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI), U.S. Department of Energy, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Department of Environmental Energy, Berkeley, Calif.
- Project: Dynamics of Environmental Tobacco Smoke.
- Position: Science Writer Intern.
2005 Summer
- Matt Kelly C'06:
- Program: Department of Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
- Project: Configuration of the MONSOON image acquisition system, to be used as part of the Dark Energy Survey study to better understand the cosmological constant (abstract).
- Tim Lindstrom C'06:
- Program: Oklahoma State University—Stillwater, Stillwater, Okla.
- Project: High-Precision Dosimetry for Radiotherapy Using the Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) Technique and Thin Al2O3:C Dosimeters (abstract).
2006 Summer
- Calvin Smythe, C'08:
- Program: Physics Department, North Park University, Chicago, Ill.
- Project: Creating a Hybrid Fortran-Python Sea-Ice Model.
2007 Summer
- Lukas Dahlstrom C'10:
- Program: Engineering internship with Pathways Consulting LLC, Etna, N.H.
- Project: Well installation and monitoring for groundwater-level analysis for wetland delineation. Site analysis for a private home construction project.
- Jeff Scripter C'08:
- Program: Redox Biology REU Program, University of Nebraska at Lincoln.
- Project: Proline Utilization (PutA) Characterization for the E. Coli Bacteria.
2008 Summer
- Jonathan Nehring C'09:
- Program: Summer REU at Southern Illinios University at Carbondale.
- Project: Computer simulation of CF3Cl and CF4 on Graphite.
- Publications (second author): Structure of CF4 multilayers on (0 0 0 1) surfaces of graphite and hydroxylated α-quartz: A molecular dynamics study, Surface Sciences, 2009. A talk about the project was also given by another team member at the 2009 APS meeting.
- Position: Writing Python scripts to set the initial conditions for the simulation and to analyze resulting data (structure of the molecules near the interface, etc.).
2010 Summer
- Juan Rodriguez C'12:
- Program: Summer Scholars Program in Materials Science Research, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Masschusetts Institute of Technology.
- Project: Effects of macromolecular crowder on human mesenchymal stem cell extracellular matrix and cytoskeleton.
2011 Summer
- Michelle Howard C'12:
- Program: Materials Research of Science and Engineering Centers (MRSEC), Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.
- Project: Extraction of the Escherichia coli Nucleoid in Different Growth Conditions.
- Andrew Johnson C'12:
- Program: Department of Physics, University of Idaho.
- Project: Identifying secondary craters of the lunar crater Tycho through boulder measurements.
- Juan Rodriguez C'12:
- Program: Physics Research Experience for Undergraduates, Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
- Project: Investigating the mechanisms of the Rho helicase.
2014 Summer
- Olivia Chisman C'15:
- Program: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles 2014 Summer REU Program.
- Project: Measurement of pion elliptic flow with BBC event planes in Au+Au collisions at (sNN)1/2 = 7.7, 11.5 and 19.6 GeV.