Sunday, June 2, 2024
By:
Big takeaways from the first week? I love DC summers, SPS is the best, and whoever lives in this building and can’t make popcorn without setting off the fire alarm needs to be evicted. Also I now know what reionization means if anyone was wondering.
As you may know, my name is Jaden, and I’m a returning intern to the SPS internship program. Last summer I worked with the American Physical Society (APS) Careers team on the National Mentoring Community (a phenomenal experience, thank you again to Bri Hart, Midhat Farooq, and everyone else at APS). This summer I’m working with the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and Dr. Nimisha Kumari on galaxy formation during the epoch of reionization. Headline there is I think I get to use actual telescope data!
The week started slow on Monday with no work yet due to the holiday. I spent the day with my good friends from school lounging on the roof of our apartment building by the pool (not a bad start to the work week). After sufficient sun exposure, Reidyn and I hosted the SPS interns at ours for a game night. I’d never played mafia, but what better way to immediately see Muji’s sense of humor, Reidyn’s narrative voice, and Jenna’s dark side.
Tuesday brought with it orientation for our first day. This meant team building activities, rooftop bocce, elevator pitch work, going over expectations, and tons of SPS merch. After a long day at the brand new American Center for Physics (ACP) offices in downtown DC, the interns and I retired home to play some spike ball down on the national mall. Prior to our trek down there, we had the first (and unfortunately far from last) fire alarm of the week.
The week continued on Wednesday with an early commute to ACP with Johnny and Muji. I had an IT call in the morning, grabbed lunch with the interns and a few APS employees, and worked on a literature review of some material Dr. Kumari had sent me. After work, the second fire alarm of the week hit, forcing us all outside once more. A group of us mobilized to Astronomy on Tap in the evening, which are short astronomy talks at a venue in DC once every few months. Our third fire alarm of the week hit at roughly 3am Thursday morning, forcing us all out into the cold. Sweatshirts were forgotten, alarms pushed back, and REM cycles disrupted.
The next day I got up early and made for the Library of Congress. I’m a student at George Washington University here in DC, so I’ve lived here for a bit now. I have a researcher pass for the LoC, meaning I can go work there and pull records whenever I want (it’s pretty sick not gonna lie). I was super productive in continuing my literature review under the watchful eye of so many tourists and only took a break for a food truck lunch in front of the Capitol Building. That evening was quiet, but the interns and I all had a nice dinner together.
Friday I commuted to ACP once more and met virtually with Dr. Kumari to go over expectations and goals for the internship. It seems I’ll be helping her identify regions of sky to target for future JWST missions, as well as identifying and analyzing Lyman-alpha emitting sources from existing VLT (Very Large Telescope, astronomers have such a way with words) data, specifically in hopes of learning more about early galaxy formation. Unbelievably cool, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to do this work (who thought it was a good idea to let me touch real data??). After work a few of us went to an art exhibition in an old historical mansion, then enjoyed some time in the back gardens. In the evening, the interns and I had another game night.
Saturday morning meant more spike ball on the national mall (Johnny and I are currently undefeated, hoping to keep that streak alive for the whole summer), as well as touch football, frisbee, a pull up competition (props to Reidyn for entering), and a free outdoor Italian opera. Bet that’s not where you expected that sentence to end up! After a long day in the sun, we met up later in the evening as a group with Gizem, an intern and friend of mine from the SPS program last summer. After more games, a group of us went out for the night to explore DC’s social scene.
The end of the week started with a morning trip to the farmers market with Charlotte, Charles, Maia, and Muji. Pickles were purchased, strawberries were sampled, and books were bought. I later met up with my roommate from school, Chris, as well as a few other friends from school for a bite to eat. I debriefed my mom on the week afterwards and unwound for the night with a movie night at my room which several of the interns joined for. Apparently Charlotte and a few other interns are woefully uneducated in cinema and had never seen any of the Indiana Jones movies. We made it through Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple of Doom and plan to complete the series (though it seems we may also need to add Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and many others).
In short, the week was a great start to the summer. SPS continues to amaze me with the accommodations and support they give (including free housing, transportations costs, several free meals, networking opportunities, merch, etc.). The summer in DC means so many fun, free, and outdoor things to do and I’m very excited to do it all with such a great intern cohort. I’m thrilled to have such a cool project with STScI and am eager to get started. Here’s hoping the next 9 weeks are just as good (I already know they will be).
Jaden Sicotte