Grace Nehring, 2025 Mather Policy Intern - NIST

Biography

SPS Chapter: Rhodes College
Hi! My name is Grace, and I am a graduating senior at Rhodes College double majoring in Physics and Mathematics with a minor in Computer Science. I’ve been fortunate to have a variety of research experiences throughout my undergraduate career, and I plan to go into the field of Medical Physics following graduation. The field is highly tied to industry and regulations from the government, so I look forward to learning more about these processes through my work at NIST as an AIP Mather Policy Intern. Outside of academics, I enjoy reading, playing board games with friends, crocheting, and being outdoors. I’m also highly involved in my chapter of SPS, serving as President for the past two years, and I’m excited to meet everyone at SPS and my fellow interns and explore the DC area!

Internship

Host: Mather Policy Intern - NIST

Internship Blog

Week 1: The DC Summer Hypothesis

Hi everyone! My name is Grace Nehring, and I am one of the Mather Policy interns at NIST this summer. It has already been an action-packed first week of the internship, and I’m excited to share my experiences with you all through this blog this summer!!
My journey this summer started by graduating on May 17^th from Rhodes College in Memphis, TN with a B.S. in both Physics and Mathematics. After many celebrations and goodbyes, I moved back home to North Carolina for three days before driving up to Washington, DC a couple days early to spend time visiting various museums and memorials. I moved into Shenkman Hall this past Sunday, May 25^th, said goodbye to my mom, and got to meet my summer roommate Riley! While settling in on Sunday and Monday, I also was able to meet some of the other interns via tots at Tonic and card games in the dorm.
Tuesday was orientation day!! We all met in the lobby of the dorm and braved the metro ride to the ACP DC office together to get to know each other and the AIP staff, learn more about the program, and build on our networking skills. The orientation was a super fun day, and it was totally worth the blisters I got on my feet from borrowing Riley’s slightly too small loafers (anything for the group picture). After orientation, I went on an adventure with JJ and James to get a public library card and pick up some groceries from Trader Joe’s before getting ready for my first day at NIST by going to bed extremely early.
JJ and I went to the NIST campus for the first time on Wednesday, and, in typical college student fashion, the day started with us forgetting an important thing we needed (passports) and taking an extra 30 minutes to go all the way back to the dorm and leave again. We are now metro experts! After finally making it via train, we were graciously picked up by Brad and driven to the NIST campus to get set up for the summer. We had a wonderful first day getting to meet everyone in the department and seeing parts of the campus, and the hour and a half commute back to Shenkman went much smoother! We went back to NIST on Thursday, where I met with my wonderful mentor(s) and got started on my project for the summer. After work, I unwinded with my fellow interns by watching The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and drinking tea.
Friday was spent working in the ACP DC office with lots of the other interns (and the fancy coffee machine). That evening, we got to attend the Trimble Lecture by Pater Galison to hear about his work on imaging black holes! I remember when the first images were released to the public in 2019, so it was really interesting to hear about all of the work that went on behind the scenes prior to the release. As an aspiring medical physicist, I also enjoyed his discussion on objectivity in images and how they decided what the “best” image would be. The SPS interns rounded out the night by going to Tonic for, you guessed it, more tots and lots of karaoke!
The highlight of Saturday was being visited by Lauren, one of my best friends from Rhodes and a member of SPS (and Associate Zone Counselor of two years). We spent the afternoon chatting, trying new food in DC, shopping, and doing our best not to be blown over during a short but mighty storm! After Lauren left, I spent the evening watching and nerd-ing out over the movie Dune with some of the other interns (I read the books guys). I rounded out the week on Sunday by going to the farmer’s market, relaxing, and watching more of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives on Sunday.
This week was full of new friends, new adventures, and a lot of cool work. I’m excited to see what the rest of the summer holds, and I’m hypothesizing that it’ll be a fun and productive summer in DC!!!

Week 2: The Man or Muppet Effect

Hi everyone, and welcome back to my blog! Week 2 of the internship made me feel more established in DC and at NIST, while diving a little deeper into projects at work!

We are working in the Office of Advanced Manufacturing (OAM) at NIST, which supports Manufacturing USA, a collaboration among the federal government, industry, and universities. The purpose of the organization is to help bridge the gap between research and development in the lab and large-scale manufacturing to ensure new technologies are being made in the US and Americans are provided with training and jobs in advanced manufacturing. Within OAM, I’m working with the Program Operations Division on a project to map the current big data initiatives in the federal government and industry. Additionally, JJ and I are both helping with some communications tasks with the Partnerships and Outreach Division.

I started the week working at the ACP office on Monday, and I was able to use their fancy gym for the first time with Riley after work. Tuesday was spent on the NIST campus, and I got to enjoy an over 4 mile walk around the National Mall. Wednesday was a little more social, as Riley and I did (and were humbled by) yoga at the ACP gym after I got back from NIST, then we went to Rock the Dock at the Wharf with Jenna, MJ, and JJ. There was live music, cornhole, and ice cream, and we had a great time!

Thursday night was the most eventful of the week because we had the Dinner Cruise with all of the interns and SPS and AIP executives! We all got dressed up, ate, and danced on the boat while having beautiful views along the Potomac River.

After spending Friday night relaxing in the dorm, Saturday was another busy day! Jenna, Riley, and I did yoga in the morning, then I went on an adventure with Jenna, Maia, James, and Kavin to Union Station, a bookstore and pastry shop, and two different museums. We were saddened to learn that Kermit The Frog is not currently on display in the American History Museum, so we had to pay homage to him by watching The Muppets (2011) and being serenaded with Man or Muppet by James and Maia!

Sunday was spent going to Trader Joe’s with Jenna, trying a new church with Naomi and Rosie, going used book shopping with James, and eating dinner with fellow interns before sitting down together to write our blogs. This week was both eventful and more comfortable as I started to get into a routine with work and spending time with the other interns!

Week 3: The Cowboy Caviar Corollary

Howdy, and welcome to week 3 of my blog!!! This week was filled with NIST tours and events, yoga, and spending time with the other interns!

JJ and I got to go on two different tours of NIST labs this week. On Tuesday, we toured the net zero house, which is used to test various systems for energy efficiency. It was cool to see their strategies for simulating the activities of people in the house and what different strategies were used to save energy. On Thursday, we were also able to tour the robot test facility. They design tests for robots made by different companies in industry that are used in competitions. These tests are all designed to simulate the conditions under which a robot may need to perform when being used by first responders in emergency situations. We enjoyed getting to hear about all of the different scenarios our tour guide had seen, and several of the students got to control the robots! They had several different four-legged robots (one pictured below), which was really hard not to see as a very clumsy dog!

In other NIST news, OAM had a picnic on Thursday! The NIST campus has a plethora of green space, including an area with grills and picnic tables that we took over for lunch. It’s really nice to be able to work at a place where I can just walk outside and feel like I’m more in nature than the city of DC. I’ve also enjoyed getting to know everyone in OAM, so the picnic was another great way to chat with everyone in the office. I also took it upon myself to introduce them all to cowboy caviar, my favorite dish to bring to a potluck, as I’ve learned that a lot of people surprisingly have never heard of it!

Outside of NIST, I enjoyed cooking, going to the gym, and spending time with my fellow interns this week! Some highlights include going to a rooftop bar Tuesday night, hanging out at the National Mall Thursday night, steaming fish with Maia on Saturday (I learned a new cooking technique), watching Dune: Part Two Saturday night, and going to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History on Sunday. It was fun to continue to get to know everyone better, find some routine, and continually prove that cowboy caviar is a wonderful dish. I did in fact fail to take many pictures this week, but I will definitely do better next week as I continue to learn and get settled here in DC!

Week 4: The Tatte Latte Factor

Hello everyone, and welcome back to my blog! This week was full of activities, but the most important was my frequent visits to Tatte and rediscovery of their house latte. For those who may not know, Tatte is a semi-local chain that originated in Boston and has expanded into a few different areas, including DC. It is a coffee shop and bakery and sandwich shop and restaurant and gathering place and bird feeder (look by the dish return outside) all in one!! Their house latte is a very unique flavor that has a little bit of spice (cardamum?) in addition to a little bit of sweetness, and it has been a significant factor in my decision-making this week... So if you take anything from this blog, go try Tatte, but on to other happenings of the week!

The most notable event for me was obviously (not in a pretentious math textbook way) the NIST visit on Wednesday! I loved getting to show everyone the office and various parts of the campus, and I was glad that they loved the people working in OAM just like I do. I can’t discuss the visit without mentioning the paramount presence of Brad driving us around in a giant van in his bucket hat! In all seriousness, Brad did so much to make the day a success in addition to adding a layer of fun with his bucket hats and stories, and we appreciate him so much. In addition to hanging out with Brad, we had a career panel, got to see the NIST museum and Newton’s apple tree (weren’t allowed to pick any apples though), toured the NIST Center for Neutron Research (which was awesome), and got to go in the anechoic chamber (a personal bucket list item of mine)! It was super fun to learn about a couple more of the labs at NIST alongside my fellow physicist interns, and I hope they all enjoyed it as much as I did. The museum trip also prompted an evening watch party of National Treasure, as we learned that researchers at NIST had designed the casing that protects the Declaration of Independence!

The interns in front of one of Newton’s apple trees at NIST.

Some interns in the anechoic chamber at NIST.

The exciting day at NIST was followed by a day off of work for Juneteenth on Thursday, which a few of the interns and I celebrated by going to Tatte (duh) for coffee/brunch then visiting the National Air and Space Museum. Even though I’m not a huge airplane person, I enjoyed getting to see all of the different space shuttles and rovers they had on display. Friday night, we ventured back to the museum scene to attend Jazz in the Garden at the National Gallery of Art. The weather was lovely, and it was very nice to sit out with the jazz and chat with a few other interns. We learned that Zhane plays piano and loves to play jazz! My mood was also, of course, enhanced by having a sandwich from Tatte for dinner during the event. We went back to the dorm a little early to avoid walking back through swarms of gnats, and I spent the rest of the evening failing to do karaoke at Tonic and getting to know some of the interns better back at the dorm!

Zhane, Kalen, Jenna, and me at Jazz in the Garden!

This weekend was also jam-packed, but some highlights include going to the US Botanic Garden, attending the orchestra with Jack and other interns on Saturday night, going to the BBQ fest (so much free stuff, refer to Riley’s blog for more details), and celebrating James’ birthday on Sunday! I honestly enjoyed the orchestra much more than I expected. We got to hear from the composer of the first major piece played, and it took place over seven movements that were all named after a different color and went along with a painting she had also created. The piece also used an “augmented orchestra”, which I learned meant that there were microphones placed strategically on stage, and the sounds from certain instruments would be modified in real time and played through speakers in addition to the natural sound of the instrument. This allowed for notes out of the range of an instrument or lasting longer than otherwise possible, and it was really cool to experience!

Some of the foliage in the US Botanic Gardens.

This was overall a very fun and busy week that I may need a lot of rest to recover from. I do hope to continue to get to know my fellow interns better while discovering my favorite little things in DC, such as the house latte from Tatte!