A Postcard From: Catherine Rowen ’18

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Rina and Catherine at Work! Photo credit: Joanna Underwood

Name: Catherine Rowen
Class Year: 2018
Major: Archaeology
Hometown: Santa Cruz, Calif.

Internship Placement: Energy Vision
Job Title: Summer Associate
Location: New York City

What’s happening at your internship?

The last month at Energy Vision has been full of excitement. Rina and I have been made to feel very much part of the team and have been given several important responsibilities for the summer. I am taking point on a report Energy Vision is compiling this summer on small-scale sustainable waste-energy units that offer communities and businesses onsite waste management options. I promise it’s a lot more exciting than it seems! I am getting a lot of time to talk to the leaders in this field and become an expert on a burgeoning industry with a bright future.

Why did you apply for this internship?

I have followed Energy Vision’s wonderful work ever since their President Matt Tomich came to a Bryn Mawr Geology class of mine sophomore year. He inspired me to do a lot of my own research on this topic and I jumped at the chance to contribute to their efforts.

What is something you have learned from your internship that you didn’t expect?

I am surprised by how much I love having a 9-to-5 job and seeing how much of a difference I can make by doing work that I love. I am excited to go to work every morning and tackle new problems. I love academia, but I love being part of a team even more. Especially one with such an important mission.

Living in a new city? What has that experience been like for you?

New York City is wonderful! I was afraid I was going to fall in love with it and all my fears were valid. It has been a real challenge to find and build a social network from the ground up, but I have met many fascinating people and managed to create the beginnings of a life for myself here. Thanks to LILAC for making that possible.

A Postcard From: My Nguyen ’20

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Name: My Nguyen
Class Year: 2020
Major: Computer Science
Hometown: Ha Tinh, Vietnam

Internship Placement: Canaday Library
Job Title: Virtual and Augmented Reality Development Intern
Location: Bryn Mawr College

What’s happening at your internship?

I am working with the Microsoft HoloLens, a pair of mixed-reality glasses that allow users to interact with both physical and 3D objects at the same time. I specifically focus on the educational possibilities of this new technology and how it can assist the learning and teaching experience. First, I learned about the HoloLens, how it works and how to best navigate it, as well as its potential as an educational tool. Then I started to develop apps for it with Unity and Microsoft Visual Studio, with the documentations from online sources and previous winter interns. Alongside with my amazing teammate Nadine Adnane, we have developed two apps, HoloStrings and BioBuddy. As their names suggest, HoloStrings allows users to experience different musical instruments, while BioBuddy helps students study anatomy, both in an immersive augmented reality environment.

Our current projects are HoloMuseum, a mixed-reality museum app, and serialization for HoloChemistry, an app to learn molecules by Pearson Education. These are challenging, yet rewarding, because I have learned a lot along the way! Apart from these HoloLens exclusive projects, I am also involved in many more initiatives from Bryn Mawr Educational Technology. I’ve helped our fellow Digital Curriculum interns with Moodle Testing, and attended workshops on Digital Competencies and Project Management, to name but a few.

Why did you apply for this internship?

I first heard about Virtual/Augmented Reality about a year ago, and had since been fascinated with its powerful potential as the technology of the future. Having tried the HoloLens during the Winter STEM & Tech Intensive program, I was sure I wanted to learn more about this device and if possible, develop for it. That’s why when I knew of this internship opportunity, I had to apply!

What is something you have learned from your internship that you didn’t expect?

A LOT! It’s like there’s something new every day. With the Educational Technology team, I’ve had the chance to learn everything from Digital Competencies to Domains of One Own, from Project Management to Web Accessibility. I have always focused more on the technical, algorithmic side of things, but these have proved to me that there is a lot more to explore in the tech world. I have also built up on my professional and communications skills, learning about LinkedIn, attending professional events such as DSRA, Philly Microsoft HoloHack, etc.

With our teammates and supervisors, I have also experienced the joy of teamwork and friendship. Coming from different backgrounds, we have learned to collaborate with each other and shared our experiences in different fields.

Can you give us three adjectives and three nouns that describe your internship experience?

Enlightening — Everything from the technical knowledge to communications and teamwork experiences has been enlightening to me! And how can I forget the moments everyone’s eyes lighted up when we introduced the HoloLens to them? It felt magical.

Empowering — I have been equipped with a lot more after this internship – technical skills, working experiences, and a lot more confidence. As a woman – a minority in tech — this is extremely important.

Fun — Yes, I am actually having fun at work. Every day is a day I meet with friends and build something new.

Professionalism — I have never experienced a real working environment before, so this is the first professional job I’ve had. From setting up working hours to attending conferences – I feel like a real employee.

Teamwork — I work with my teammate Nadine, as well as three Digital Curriculum Interns and supervisors in the same room, so they have become an important part of my job!

Knowledge — I have gained knowledge in many different fields and aspects from this internship, and most importantly, a desire to learn more and improve myself.

A Postcard From: Mecca Naeem Harris ’20

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Name: Mecca Naeem Harris
Class Year: 2020
Major: Undeclared/Independent Major Candidate
Hometown: Bronx, N.Y.

Internship Placement: The African American Museum in Philadelphia
Job Title: Intern for the Curator of Education
Location: Philadelphia

What’s happening at your internship?

The Curator of Education oversees the implementation of programming for younger ages. What the interns and I are doing at the moment is developing workshops, worksheets, and other programming for children of all ages. Specifically, right now we are working on workshops for our PhilAesthetic exhibit, which celebrates the Black Arts Movement. I am also working on developing other programming that the Museum can use in the future.

Why did you apply for this internship?

I applied for this internship because though my heart is in film and media, I grew up in New York City with a love and genuine appreciation for the museums there. I am aware of the kinds of impacts that art and museums can have on children.

What has been your favorite part of this internship?

My favorite part about this internship is that we have space to move creatively. The workshops that we are developing and coming up with are our own, truly. Some internships are very “go-fer” oriented, where as this one allows us to suggest programming, write up proposals, and figure out how our talents can best serve the institution. The Museum wants you to show off your best self.

Living in a new city? What has that experience been like for you?

Unlike during the school year, I spend every day in Philadelphia. The museum is in Center City, and gives me access to all of Philadelphia. All of the interns go out for food sometimes, and I have discovered a whole lot of restaurants that I will be sure to visit in the future.

A Postcard From: Nikitha Shankar Shakamuri ’19

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Name: Nikitha Shankar Shakamuri
Class Year: 2019
Major: Psychology
Hometown: Marlboro

Internship Placement: Robert Wood Johnson Laboratories
Job Title: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Location: Piscataway Township, N.J.

What’s happening at your internship?

Currently, we are running fentanyl self-administering rats to study the role of orexin in opioid addiction.  By using self-administering rats, we can use the Law of Demand, which leads to behavioral economics, to understand the role of orexin in reward conditioning.

Why did you apply for this internship?

The Gary Aston-Jones lab, a behavioral neuroscience lab, combines my passion for both psychology and biology. The lab also places each student with a mentor to gain skills in handling animals/histology/immunohistochemistry.

What is something you have learned from your internship that you didn’t expect?

The internship has been fantastic so far because I have learned research techniques most undergraduates learn in later years/medical school. I learned the basics of immunohistochemistry to stain tissue from markers of neuronal activation, which I would have never imagined. I also learned histology to section/mount brain tissue.

What has been the biggest challenge you have faced at your internship?

The biggest challenge I have faced in my internship is being the “newbie.” Everyone in the lab has had prior experience or are Rutgers veterans. As my first real wet lab experience, I found it hard at first to keep a steady, confident mind. With the help of my mentor, and the skills she taught me in a short period of time, I found the lab environment to be rewarding (no pun intended).

A Postcard From: Hayley Johnson ’18

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Name: Hayley Johnson
Class Year: 2018
Major: Physics
Hometown: Vienna, Va.

Internship Placement: Bryn Mawr Summer Science
Job Title: Researcher
Location: Bryn Mawr, Pa.

What’s happening at your internship?

I’m doing computational work to identify a wave in the Large Plasma Device at UCLA. Rotating the plasma at certain speeds aids confinement, which is desirable for fusion purposes. But at those speeds we also see an unidentified wave cropping up that, based on my work, I now know is actually two waves. Data was taken last summer at UCLA, and now I’m running code to do data analysis and identify what kind of wave we’re looking at.

Why did you apply for this internship?

I’ve been working in the plasma physics lab at Bryn Mawr for about a year and a half now, so it seemed natural to continue working in the lab over the summer. The work I’m doing now will also become my senior thesis this coming year.

What has been your favorite part of this internship?

We’re partnered with a plasma physics lab down at Swarthmore, and it’s been really fun getting to interact with the students in that lab. We meet up at least once a week, and it’s a great opportunity to share our work and give each other advice about how to proceed. It’s also been fun to interact with people outside of the Bryn Mawr community who are at the same stage in their physics career as I am.

What is most rewarding about your internship?

The most rewarding feeling is when I get a really complicated piece of code to work. The longer I spend on it, the better the feeling is when it finally runs.

A Postcard From: Huilei Wang ’18

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Name: Huilei Wang
Class Year: 2018
Major: Linguistics and Mathematics
Hometown: Jinan, China

Internship Placement: Childhood Bilingualism Research Center, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Job Title: Research Assistant
Location: Hong Kong

What’s happening at your internship?

I am working at a lab doing corpus-based research on language acquisition and development of bilingual and multilingual children. A number of projects are going on, including an eye-tracking experiment on infants, data collection with several Mandarin-English bilingual kids in Hong Kong and some in the United States with Mandarin or Cantonese as their heritage language, and etc. I started with the basics — transcribing recordings of a Mandarin-Cantonese-English trilingual child into text. It was completely new and challenging to me at the beginning, but as I got familiar with symbols and rules used in transcription and discovered the kids’ cuteness in speaking, I found myself really enjoy this tedious but rewarding work. After that, I was involved in tagging morphological tiers to the transcription and some analyses of a syntactic structure that appeared in a Mandarin-English bilingual child. I also got the chance to observe the eye-tracking experiment, which is an eye-opening experience to me since I’ve only read about this kind of experiments in books.

Why did you apply for this internship?

I am interested in language acquisition and bilingualism and as a Mandarin and English speaker, I am especially curious about Mandarin-English bilinguals. This research center in Hong Kong, a multilingual city, is a pioneer in doing such studies around the world and also a perfect place for me learn more about my interest.

Living in a new city? What has that experience been like for you?

It is definitely not easy at the beginning. Looking for apartments, moving in, getting familiar with the city’s complex streets, and so on, are all undeniable challenges. But thanks to the help from my colleagues, roommates, and friends, I adapted to the life here in a very short time. And Hong Kong itself is a safe, diverse and tolerant city, with food and culture from all over the world. So I wasn’t troubled by any lack of belonging. At the same time, Hong Kong is also a place that offers you a lot of fun. Wandering around the old streets in Central by myself or riding bikes with friends along the seaside and the authentic street foods next door made me fall in love with this city.

Can you give us three adjectives and three nouns that describe your internship experience?

It is hard to use only three adjectives to describe this experience, but the three that jumped out right away are enjoyable, rewarding, and inspiring.

Three nouns that I would choose are exploration, stories, and thinking.

A Postcard From: Camila Silva ’19

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Name: Camila Silva
Class Year: 2019
Major: Geology
Hometown: Everett, Mass.

Internship Placement: Sedimentology Laboratory
Job Title: Research intern
Location: Bryn Mawr College

What’s happening at your internship?

This summer I am continuing a research project that I began last summer. I, along with my lab team, collect peat cores from salt marshes in Plum Island, Mass., and analyze them for their percent of organic matter. We focus mainly on two creeks, West and Sweeney, that have been under observation for more than a decade now. West creek is unfertilized, however, Sweeney creek is fertilized with nitrate with each diurnal tide. In these recent years, the banks of Sweeney creek have been collapsing and the hypothesis is that since the nutrients are being introduced to the above ground biomass instead of the belowground, then the plants are losing belowground biomass since they do not really need their services. Most of my time in the internship is spent in the lab processing these cores. There are a couple ways of analyzing the carbon content of peat samples, but we use a procedure called Loss on ignition (LOI). Each core we extract is 50 cm long, thus, we cut each of them per centimeter and LOI every other segment. We weigh the dry samples before and after putting them in the muffle furnace for 4 hours at 550 degrees Celsius. With this data we then can calculate the carbon stock in each marsh and determine if there is a difference between the carbon stocks of the fertilized and unfertilized marshes to prove the hypothesis.

Why did you apply for this internship?

As an undeclared freshman I was indecisive whether to major in biology or geology, but I never had much experience with either. I worked in Professor Thomas Mozdzer’s ecology lab and he knew I was very interested in working with coastal systems so I began working a hybrid in his lab and in Professor Don Barber’s sedimentology lab. I soon grew very fond of my work in the sedimentology lab and this year I am continuing my work there.

What has been your favorite part of this internship?

Although I enjoy working in the lab, my favorite part of this internship is the field trips. I never really traveled so it is always fun to see new places. We have taken trips to Plum Island, Mass., SERC in Maryland and Gloucester, N.C. Each place is so different and that creates new and quite fun experiences.

Was this internship what you expected it to be?

I had no clue what this internship was going to be when I stated it last year and I was very delighted with what it turned out to be. Going into it this year I thought I knew exactly what it was going to be, but I was and still am being surprised every day. I am continuously learning more about what I am doing in the lab and my ideas are always challenged, which forces me to look at certain things with different points of view.

A Postcard From: Andrea Moreno ’20

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Name: Andrea Moreno
Class Year: 2020
Major: Undecided
Hometown: Saugus, Massachusetts

Internship Placement: Tufts Medical Center
Job Title: Intern
Location: Boston, Mass.

What’s happening at your internship?

In my internship, I am shadowing a child and adolescent psychiatrist name Dr. Neha Sharma. My schedule is different each week because it depends when the doctor has patients coming in: on Mondays and Tuesdays I usually go in at 11 a.m. and on Wednesdays I go in at 9 a.m. and stay there until 5 p.m. Then on Thursdays it varies because there are some patients who come in early and others who come in late. With each patient that is seen, I am able to be part of the session, if they are comfortable with having me, and I take notes on what the patient can have and how we can proceed to help the patient. I have been able to see many different patients and a few multiple times already. It has been amazing to hear all various kinds of stories because everyone has their own story and have many things going in their lives. I sometimes am able to interact in the sessions if the patient asks me something, and I think that is truly rewarding for me because I feel like the patient is comfortable talking to me. I do not feel like I am only shadowing but that I can ask questions and say my opinions when I can.

Why did you apply for this internship?

I applied for this internship because I thought it was the perfect opportunity to figure out if this could be a possibility of it being my future career. And with confidence, I can say this has been such a wonderful experience so far because the doctor is an amazing person who I can see loves her job. It makes me feel like this could be it for me. This could be what I would like to continue to study for and what my major could be. I am not only learning information from books but I also am seeing real-life experience and I am able to get a sneak peak of what it would be like to be psychiatrist.

What has been the biggest challenge you have faced at your internship?

The biggest challenge I have faced at my internship has been hearing the experiences of other people. It is quite overwhelming to hear what people actually go through and that sometimes we are too scared to accept ourselves. I have heard stories that makes me think about not being scared about feeling all kinds of emotions. I have had some moments where I wanted to show my emotions but I knew I had to be strong for the patients. I may not be able to fully understand what all patients are going through and there are definitely some patients who point that out, but I know that they need someone to let all of their feelings out on.

What is most rewarding about your internship?

The most rewarding about my internship is that I am able to be part of the therapy sessions and even though I cannot say much about the actual sessions because of doctor and patient confidentiality, it is a unique experience. Not many people at my age could say that they have been able to shadow a doctor if they are not in graduate school or medical school. I feel honored to have been able to see patients and get the experience of helping them to take steps to making them feel better. These eight weeks of my internship has taught me that everyone goes through life but sometimes some people need someone to help them along the way, and I want to be that person in the future.

A Postcard From: Rachel Terry ’18

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Name: Rachel Terry
Class Year: 2018
Major: Math
Hometown: Cardiff, Calif.

Internship Placement: Faviana International
Job Title: Production Intern
Location: New York, New York

What’s happening at your internship?

Faviana International is a dress company that specializes in special occasion and prom dresses. I am learning all about the production life cycle as we prepare for a very important trade show in Atlanta, Georgia in August. The Production team works very closely with the Design team. On a daily basis, I am in charge of logging and photographing new samples and swatches when they arrive. I am also working on a demographic research project. I have taken inventory of the showroom, worked with purchase orders and shipments, helped out during a photo shoot, run errands at the fabric store, and attended company-wide and department meetings. I use Excel on a daily basis and am strengthening my skills.

I am working with the dresses a lot more than I expected, which is a nice surprise.

Why did you apply for this internship?

As a math major, I am interested in pursuing a business related career. Since there is a business side to any industry, I thought that it would be very interesting to experience the business side of the fashion industry. I am really enjoying it and still working towards that goal.

What has been your favorite part of this internship?

I am truly enjoying my internship. Being part of the production process and this company as a whole has been a very enjoyable experience. The days go by very quickly, and the people are extremely friendly and helpful. The mission statement (to help women feel good and celebrate themselves) and core values (bring out the best, show genuine concern, eliminate drama, embrace evolution, inspire elegance) play a very important role in shaping the culture at Faviana which is an aspect that I really appreciate. Throughout the day, I am greeted by name by the other employees, which is a simple but thoughtful acknowledgement that I have noticed is lacking at Bryn Mawr.

Living in a new city? What has that experience been like for you?

Living in New York City has been wonderful! I am staying at the Webster Apartments on 34th Street, which is a residence for working women. It is similar to the dorms at Bryn Mawr and has given me the opportunity to make a lot of international friends. I now have a lot of girls to visit when I go to England, Holland, and France! With these new friends, I have done a lot of activities and visited many places that I never would have considered on my own. I am also appreciating the homework-free weekends!

A Postcard From: Zhoe Rub ’18

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Name: Zhoe Rub
Class Year: 2018
Major: Biology
Hometown: Astoria, Ore.

Internship Placement: Oregon Health and Science University Biomedical Engineering Department
Job Title: Experiential Volunteer
Location: Oregon Health and Science University Center for Health and Healing, Portland, Ore.

What’s happening at your internship?

I am interning in a biomedical engineering lab. Over the past few weeks, I have learned how to prepare platelets from human blood for research experiments. Recently, I have been testing inhibitors on platelets to prevent platelet activation and looking at my results under a microscope. I have learned how to stain platelets for actin and myosin, which are both components of cells. I am currently preparing for an informal presentation of my research that I will present to my fellow interns. I have met a lot of amazing people through my internship. I really enjoy working with the researchers in the lab and working with my fellow interns.

Platelets stained for actin.

Why did you apply for this internship?

I applied for this internship because I want to be a doctor and I was interested in gaining research experience. A friend of mine did her PhD work in the biomedical engineering lab that I applied to and she suggested the internship to me. I am honored to be able to work in the lab that I am interning in and I am very thankful for this opportunity.

What has been your favorite part of this internship?

My favorite part of my internship has been preparing platelets for microscopy. Which is just a fancy way of saying that I prepare human platelets and put them on microscope slides to view. I then determine if the inhibitors that I am testing are working based on what I see under the microscope. I have also loved meeting and getting to know my fellow interns and the researchers in the lab. I really enjoy working with my coworkers and they have made my internship really great.

Living in a new city? What has that experience been like for you?

I have been living in Portland, Oregon. It has been a really interesting experience for me because I have never lived in a city before and Portland is about two hours away from my hometown. I am living with a really nice family on the edge of the city and I have had to figure out how to get to and from work using the bus and the Portland streetcar. At first, taking public transportation and shopping for myself was stressful, but now that I am used to everything I feel like this experience has made me a much more confident person.