Andrew Jones has been working virtually as a Research and Development Graduate with scientists at the Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. Sandia National Laboratory is the largest DOE National Lab in the country, and home to the Computer Science Research Institute (CSRI). Jones’s internship at CSRI is focused on accelerating particle methods for solving partial differential equations that govern ocean and atmospheric phenomena.
Despite COVID-19 preventing his travel to CSRI, Jones is loving the opportunity to work virtually with scientists at a national lab, and the opportunity to attend weekly seminars the lab has to offer, specifically the Atmospheric Science Seminar. This seminar takes place once a week and focuses on many different types of computational research that Jones will carry with him throughout his career.
“A lot of time is spent messaging and video chatting back and forth, and attending mandatory meetings and training required for Sandia’s summer interns,” A typical day at work involves” reading papers and books and writing notes on the particle methods I have been provided by the researcher I am working with. I have also been running tests using my collaborator’s FORTRAN framework, to understand how the code works and the behavior of the physics of certain problems.”
Jones contacted one of the lab managers who he met at the SIAM CSE 19 Conference when internship applications opened in October of 2019. “The application process was pretty straightforward,” Jones noted that connecting with the lab manager at the SIAM CSE conference allowed him to find out if his prior experience would be a good fit for any of the research being done at CSRI.
Students interested in internships, fellowships, or co-ops with CSRI can visit this site for more information: https://www.sandia.gov/careers/students_postdocs/internships/institutes/ccr.html