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ight out of the past 10 years
, Ames Laboratory
chemist Aaron Sadow has mentored a Science
Undergraduate Laboratory Internships (SULI)
student. Sometimes the mentorship has been for the
10-week summer program and sometimes for the 16-week
semester program. On occasion, he’s mentored more than
one student at a time.
When asked why he keeps coming back to the SULI
program, Sadow, who is also associate professor of chemistry
at Iowa State University (ISU), responded, “SULI is an
excellent program for everyone involved. Mentors benefit
from having the opportunity to help train future scientists to
do great science, graduate students benefit from having the
opportunity to work with excited undergraduate students, and
interns benefit from research opportunities that may result
in published research papers that could lead to additional
research funding for the mentor’s program.”
Including Sadow’s students, Ames Laboratory scientists
featured in this issue of Inquiry have hosted more than 50
students and faculty from 34 universities, colleges and
community colleges around the country.
Holding a close second to Sadow’s impressive record
of commitment to Ames Laboratory’s science internship
programs is Ames Laboratory scientist and associate professor
of chemistry at ISU Javier Vela. But in addition to hosting
several SULI students, for the past six years Vela has hosted
two Visiting Faculty Program (VFP) teams, which consist of
a faculty member and up to two students. With a focus on
growing a diverse workforce for the Department of Energy’s
national laboratories, VFP teams come from institutions
historically underrepresented in the research community.
“It is only because of this program that we’ve have had an
opportunity to collaborate with the principal investigators at
these institutions,” said Vela, who was a 2014 recipient of the
Stanley C. Israel Regional Award for Advancing Diversity in
Chemical Sciences. “And most of the students we’ve hosted
would never have thought about coming here. They’ve been
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able to learn more about our Laboratory, university, city, and
state. It’s been a good experience all-around.”
Javier Grajeda, a SULI intern in 2011, epitomizes the
importance of internship programs like VFP that are focused
on diversity. Vela met Grajeda, a student at the University
of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) at a Society for Advancement
of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science
(SACNAS) conference. A discussion of Vela’s work in
inorganic chemistry piqued Grajeda’s interest so he applied
for the summer 2011 SULI program. During his short
internship, Grajeda co-authored a paper with one of Vela’s
graduate students, which was published in the journal
Chemistry of Materials. In addition to working in his lab,
Vela said Grajeda also continued working with scientists at
UTEP and then traveled to China to do research. When
it was time to apply for graduate school for his Ph.D. in
chemistry, Grajeda was accepted at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. At the same time, he was awarded
a highly competitive three-year fellowship through the
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship
Program. When asked about the key to his success, Grajeda
said, “Working under Dr. Vela has had a great impact on my
career, and I’m grateful for having been given the opportunity
to participate in the SULI program.”
Although he would have preferred to have had Grajeda
enter graduate school at Iowa State, Vela takes a long view
of the situation and said ultimately “everyone wins with the
DOE’s internship programs” because they help facilitate the
growth of students like Grajeda, who may end up working as
scientists at DOE laboratories.
Ames Laboratory scientist Igor Slowing, who has
mentored 10 SULI students since 2012, echoes Vela’s
comments. Slowing said internships offered through SULI,
VFP and the Community College Internship (CCI) program
are a “good advertisement” for Ames Laboratory. “What we
are doing in the DOE’s labs is communicated to more people,
which in turn helps universities and communities learn more
about the DOE and its national labs, which then helps the
American taxpayer understand what we’re doing with their
taxpayer dollars,” said Slowing.
... everyone wins with the DOE’s
internship programs ...
Javier Vela, Ames Laboratory scientist