Sunday, June 2, 2024
By:
Hello everyone! My name is Kaden, and I am a research intern at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). I just completed my third year at William Jewell College and in the fall will be attending Washington University in St. Louis to complete a dual degree program in physics and mechanical engineering.
Following a long two days of traveling, I arrived here last Sunday for an exciting first week. Before arriving, I had to return from a weeklong trip in Mexico City and repack to travel once again to spend my summer here. After two hours of sleep between all the traveling, I was welcomed to George Washington College’s campus with an hour-long line to gain access to my room. With that being said, I had some of the best sleep that night.
Once settled in, I was able to meet the other interns by playing different card games with them on Monday night. It was great getting to meet everyone and learn more about them. The next day was filled with orientation at the American Center for Physics, to prepare us for the summer and become more acquainted with everyone. Our orientation was filled with great opportunities to become more comfortable with everyone, like some rooftop bocce ball and making towers of spaghetti and marshmallows.
On Wednesday, came my first day at NIST. The day was filled with long commutes, meetings, and learning about the project I will be working on. It was exciting to learn about the projects that researchers within my department, which is the Nanoscale Device Characterization Division, are completing. Additionally, I’ve now gained a better understanding of my own project, which will involve working with organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) and magnetic fields. After the long commute back from NIST, I was then able to go with some other interns to listen to three astronomy talks for free! As a college student, it’s hard to pass on something free.
The rest of my workdays at NIST were spent completing many training so I can have access to the labs and internet. However, once completing them, my mentor took me to the labs that I would be working in and allowed me to complete some tests on old OLED samples she had made. It was fun getting to work in such a high-quality lab (see the pictures of the yellow lit room, some of their samples are sensitive to blue light so the labs use yellow light instead) and an experience working on the samples in a glovebox.
Throughout the week, whenever I wasn’t working, I got to get to know the other interns better. Whether this be through a 3 am fire alarm or a couple of nights playing spike ball or football at the National Mall. I’m excited to continue getting to know everyone here and see where the next 9 weeks take us.
Kaden Gammon