Jahanvi Chamria, 2026 LLNL AI Guide Intern

Biography

SPS Chapter: Colgate University
Hi! I’m Jahanvi, a rising junior at Colgate University double majoring in Physics and Computer Science and serving as the secretary of our SPS Chapter. I love using technology to solve problems, especially through electrical engineering and the research I’m doing on the self-assembly of peptide nanowires. I’m originally from India and I enjoy traveling, working out, gaming, and hanging out with friends. I’m looking forward to spending the summer as the LLNL AI Guide intern and contributing to the SPS community while growing as a researcher!

Internship

Host: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Internship Blog

Week 1

Getting Oriented

Packing up my life in three suitcases and flying isn’t something I enjoy too much, but I’ve done it more often than I would like. This time, however, I was going to an apartment in Washington, D.C. so it was much easier to justify. When I arrived here from upstate New York, I felt relieved to be in warm weather after months. I also missed the feeling of being in a big city, which is completely opposite to what the small town of Hamilton, New York is like. At the apartment, it was great to meet Nora, my roommate, and her family. We got lunch together and I mostly just unpacked for the rest of the day.

We decided to take a walk and explore the neighborhood, and I was surprised to see how close the monuments were to our apartment. We watched part of the Memorial Day Parade too. I also had the chance to meet some of the other interns and we bonded over our experience of doing a Physics major at our respective schools. We ended up getting together for a game of cards and dinner.

The next day started with orientation and it was really nice to finally meet people from SPS and AIP in person. Everyone was really sweet and welcoming. I had met with my mentor, Dr. Rakestraw, last week virtually because he is at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, so I was free for the rest of the day and decided to explore the Georgetown area with the other interns. This was also the day I cooked my first meal from scratch, which was arduous, but hopefully I’ll get better with time.

After HR Training on Wednesday, we explored the area nearby and worked in the office for the rest of the day, because we had an AIP lecture that evening. It was a talk by Dava Sobel, the author of Longitude, Galileo’s Daughter, and her newest book, “The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science”. The talk was very engaging and focused on Marie Curie’s career trajectory as a woman in science in that period, followed by a question-answer session.

I decided to work from home the next day. Our project is to help Dr. Rakestraw design a course on scientific inquiry using AI and build something that can be a starting point for all educators teaching science in the “agentic era”. Some of our ideas include having customized AI tutors for pre-lab and post-lab sessions, as well as in-lab Generative Collective Intelligence sessions, along with an adaptive learning system that combines the well-known strategies of retrieval, interleaving, and spaced repetition to optimize the learning process, especially for physics which requires an in-depth understanding of not only the concepts themselves but also when and how to apply them. We also plan to apply AI to traditional physics topics to make them more interactive and help students leverage AI to their advantage. This is especially important given how rapidly these tools are evolving. I worked on one of the pre-lab tutors for the first lab that day.

Some other interns were also working remotely so we decided to go to the Folger Shakespeare Library together. It was a very productive day, and I had the opportunity to meet two others on my team. We met with Dr. Rakestraw and discussed our progress so far, as well as the next steps. We decided to add feedback at the end of every pre-lab session, so the student can improve their future interactions, along with memory so that each student’s tutor can remember his/her preferences and answering pattern. Now, I will be working on a simulation as a post-lab exercise to build up on the concepts using more examples. I have been using a Slack MCP to automate the process of creating guidelines for my work. I ended up getting a library card for the Library of Congress, which I’m looking forward to using. The day ended with game night!

Over the weekend, I went to Petworth Porchfest, attended the opening night of the National Orchestral Institute + Festival, and did a Biking in the City class with my roommate. I’m looking forward to the next two months!

Week 2

Settling In

The week started with me going into the ACP office with a couple of other interns each morning. I found a nice desk space for myself and got comfortable with working there. I also started waking up early to work out before heading in. Whether that lasts the whole summer remains to be seen, but I’m optimistic. On one of the days, we switched it up and worked from the Daughters of the American Revolution Library. It was well-maintained, quiet, and the kind of place that motivated me to work.

Work-wise, it was a quite productive week. Most of the LLNL project team joined us this week, so the first couple of days were spent on introductions and getting acquainted with each other. We finished working on the pre-lab exercise and AI self-check documents for this experiment that we had been working on. I completed my inelastic collision simulation after a few rounds of iteration. We made decisions on the database, tokenization and data storage, and the structure of the platform. I also built a frontend template to pitch our vision to Dr. Rakestraw.

The rest of the week filled in around the work in the best way. Wednesday was our first potluck. Everyone had spent the evening cooking, and we got together for a delicious and filling dinner. After that, my roommate and I decided to take a walk to the monuments. On Thursday, I went out for an early dinner with some of the other interns at Founding Farmers. We came back, cooked, and walked to the Lincoln Memorial. That evening, we also ended up sitting by the Potomac River and enjoying the view, which I knew would become my favorite spot in DC.

On Friday, after a busy week of work, I went to get groceries with my roommate. Some of the interns came over, and we all went to the Key Bridge Boathouse for live music and happy hour. The walk there was long and the weather was quite warm, but it was worth it. We hosted people back at the apartment after. On Saturday, we went thrift shopping in Arlington! I got some great finds and also explored a different area. It still surprises me that the subway system goes far enough to reach Virginia and Maryland. After that we returned to the apartment because one of the other interns had just taken his LSAT, so we organized a surprise for him. We ended up playing cards after that and I stayed in that evening.

Sunday was my favorite day of the week, because I first went to a farmers’ market in Dupont Circle with some other interns, where there was a really nice selection of produce, and then to three bookstores in the area. We also ran into two other interns who are at law firms but staying in the same hall as us. The bookstores were really nice to explore, and I did not even feel time passing by. Then, all of us went to the Smithsonian National Zoo together. It was my second time there, and I was comparing it to how different it was three years ago. I enjoyed the various exhibits and was pretty tired in the end. It was a good week!

Week 3

Literature Reviews, Databases, and Detours

This week felt very short compared to the past two, and now I’m suddenly wondering how it is June 14 already. We only have 7 more weeks to go (?) The week started out pretty slow though. Monday was a productive day at the ACP office. Our team started working on a new lesson focused on conducting literature review effectively using AI assistance. We considered introducing students to tools like NotebookLM, Connected Papers, and Semantic Scholar, all of which are AI tools for conducting deep research, citation mapping, and background searches. One of my teammates and I spent time hashing out the design architecture for our platform for this course, knowledgewithAI, and started experimenting with Neon and Cloudflare databases to connect the backend to a frontend template we built using Claude Design.

Tuesday, we tried to go to trivia after work. Keyword: tried. Both spots we checked were completely packed, so we called it and headed back. Except we got on the metrobus going in the wrong direction and had to do a little unplanned detour through the city. Not ideal, but kind of funny in retrospect.

Wednesday was potluck day, which has already become one of my favorite parts of the week. My roommate and I decided to make pani puri, a popular Indian street-food style dish, which everyone seemed to enjoy.

On Thursday evening, some of the interns came over for cards and Catan, which was unexpectedly competitive. On Friday, a bunch of people had friends visiting for the weekend, so we ended up going out for dinner and then hosting everyone back at the apartment afterward. We also took a walk, and the sky was pink/orange, which made everything in the neighborhood look really pretty.

I stayed in for most of the weekend but did make it to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. It is a very big museum, so we only covered half of it that day. The energy in the city this weekend was good too, lots of people out, which made even walking around feel more enjoyable.

On the work side, we went through a lot of iterations on the literature review lesson plan throughout the week but were able to come up with an effective plan by the end of the week. I also spent a large amount of time vibe coding the platform, and I have a draft ready to deploy. The database structure now supports role-based access, so students, instructors, and administrators each see different parts of the site and have different upload and delete permissions depending on who they are. Seven weeks left feels like both a lot and not enough. Curious to see what next week looks like.

Week 4

The Usual (plus NIST)

This week went by pretty quickly but also felt slow somehow, maybe because of Juneteenth along with work-related events. I think I’ve finally been able to get into a routine that I enjoy. I wake up early, get a workout in, and then head to the office/a library for work. In the evenings, I try to go for walks or activities with the other interns. That is pretty much how Monday and Tuesday were.

We had a dinner cruise with AIP on Tuesday evening. It was really great to reconnect with everyone from AIP, including the CEO. I enjoyed the dinner and the best part was watching the sunset from there. On Wednesday, we headed to NIST for a tour. Although the commute was quite long, it was worth it. We got to meet the mentors of some of our fellow interns and talk to a panel of AAAS fellowship recipients, which was insightful. The coolest thing for me was getting to see one of the descendants of Newton’s apple tree. We also did a tour of the NCNR (NIST Center for Neutron Research) and saw a presentation on forensics. I really enjoyed seeing the big campus and looking at the complex research being done there. It was also one of the interns’ birthdays, so I spent the rest of the day with everyone.

On Thursday, we had a meeting to finalize the literature review lesson and start working on a creative one which will allow students to build their own simulations to help them study and visualize scientific concepts. This is exciting to me because I have made around 50 simulations of scientific processes since freshman year of high school, using both traditional HTML/CSS and those like WebVPython, and I recently made one for understanding inelastic collisions for our first lesson. Now, we will have to look at it from the teacher’s perspective, where we will not be creating our own simulations but rather instructing students on best practices to make theirs.

Our online platform, knowledgewithAI, has also made a lot of progress since last week. We added automation into it so any educator with access can import question banks (in the form of JSON files) into the retrieval tool directly as and when they finish teaching that topic. This way, students can take the advantage of learning using the techniques of spaced repetition, interleaving, and active recall all semester, not just at the end. We also restructured the layout to separate the retrieval tool from the prelabs and postlabs, making everything more intuitive to navigate.

On Thursday, I also went to a board game bar with the other interns, followed by getting unexpectedly huge slices of pizza. Friday was Juneteenth, so some of the interns and I decided to go to the Natural History museum to look at the second floor (which we were yet to see after our last visit). I really enjoyed going to the Gems and Minerals exhibit, I think we spent at least an hour there.

I took the rest of the weekend to rest, mostly. However, I did go to the Dupont Circle Pride Parade on Saturday, which I really enjoyed! I had been wanting to go to some of the museums for a long time, and since it was Solstice weekend and they were all open until 11 p.m., I went to the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, the Museum of African Art, and the Hirshhorn Museum. I was pretty tired by the end of it, but I was finally able to check these off my list of places to visit.

I cannot believe the coming week will be the last full week of June, and there’s still so much I want to do in DC. I’m excited.

Week 5

Halfway There

This week was surprisingly slow. On Monday, I had a productive day at work and then proceeded to Room 808 with a few other interns in the evening for a comedy show. I thoroughly enjoyed it and definitely plan on going back sometime.

On Tuesday, I felt a little unwell and worked from home. On Wednesday, I finally met my team for the first time this week. This was because my mentor was busy with workshops this week and so we all worked asynchronously. We discussed the lesson plan and student guide I had developed for the module on creating simulations to facilitate learning. We decided that we wanted to pivot the lesson to include non-STEM topics as well, so students can make simulations on anything they are interested in and still learn how to validate that they work. After the meeting, I went for a quick grocery run before cooking for the potluck. Potluck was really fun and we also played a game afterwards, so it was nice to hang out with the other interns.

Then, on Thursday, I wanted to switch things up a bit, so I decided to work from the GW Student Center. I felt like I was more productive and the change of environment helped with that. I will try to rotate places more going forward, not just stay in the ACP office. Then, I went to Quigley’s with a few other interns, followed by cooking dinner with my roommate. We also went for a walk to the monuments to watch the sunset.

Friday was a busy day. I had a few meetings and then went to dinner with the AIP Board of Directors in Maryland. Before dinner, we had the chance to talk to people from the board. I got to speak with people from different areas, like chemical engineering, research, and technology. As a rising junior, these conversations were quite helpful, not only because I got exposure to so many kinds of work being done after doing a physics major, but also because of the guidance I received. Listening to their experiences of grad school, navigating their early careers, and their current positions, I understood how malleable this degree is, and how I might end up doing different things at different points of my life. The dinner was an excellent opportunity, and I am grateful that we got to attend it.

After dinner, we walked around nearby for a bit before heading back to our apartments. On Saturday, I decided to work out of a cafe nearby, which was nice. It was raining pretty much all weekend, so I stayed in. On Sunday, my roommate and I had a movie night which I enjoyed quite a bit. I guess we are halfway done (?)

Week 6

Mind Maps

The beginning of this week was quite productive. We finally streamlined our document process and built a tracker for the 8-10 components that go into every lesson to help keep track of everything. I also spent the majority of the week coding the data write-back. We formatted the prelab Socratic tutors so they automatically return a JSON file with the student’s mind map, knowledge gaps, personal style, and AI engagement score. Then, those details populate the student’s profile on the website automatically. Coding this was very fun, as it required systems thinking and was something I’d never done before. I also started configuring our own KnowledgeWithAI custom GPTs on ChatGPT and an MCP setup on Claude, which is still a work in progress.

On Monday after work, I went to Quigley’s for trivia with some of the interns. We ended up having a little outdoor picnic afterwards nearby, and I read a book. The sun didn’t set until 8:30 p.m., so it was really pleasant outside. On Wednesday, we went to the Niels Bohr Library and Archives for our tour. I really enjoyed looking at the materials that had been pulled for us to look at, including a letter from Einstein to Schrödinger and Richard Feynman’s calculus notebook. It was really inspiring to see the thought process and early days of physicists who later revolutionized the field.

During the tour, we also got to see the various floors of the archives, with different preservation conditions. Having worked in archives before this, it was interesting to see common organization and archival practices in a completely different environment. We even found a section of SPS files from every school, and a few of us spotted familiar names on the boxes. The tour concluded with a talk on best practices for oral histories and interviews, which was quite informative.

We had the potluck on Thursday this week. Some people’s friends were also visiting, so it was fun. We decided to go to the Wharf afterwards. On Friday, I went to one of the museums and explored a little. I also decided to go shopping. I went for board games with the other interns later in the evening.

The weekend was pretty fun but it could have been more enjoyable if the weather was not so terrible outside. It was basically impossible to go outdoors for the first half of the 4th, so I just had breakfast with the other interns. We played cards afterwards and just stayed in. In the evening, we got together to hangout before the fireworks, which happened quite late at night. We went to the waterfront to watch them, but came back because of the rain and ultimately ended up watching them from outside the building. On Sunday, I finished my pending work and ended the day with a movie.

Week 7

MCP Week

July is definitely passing by twice as fast as June did. On Monday, I went to the ACP office and got a lot of work done. My mentor and some people from my team conducted student workshops this entire week so we did not meet synchronously. Some of the interns in the office decided to get lunch together and I joined them. After work, we finally made it to Tonic Trivia (after 3-4 past attempts). We came in third, which was really exciting.

On Tuesday, I worked from the office again and had a productive work day. This week, I worked on the Knowledge With AI Claude MCP so students can do their prelab sessions by typing in a simple instruction like “Hi, can we do the Collisions Prelab from Knowledge With AI?” and the relevant prelab content gets pulled straight from the website by the MCP. I also configured the data write-back system so a JSON file automatically populates student histories with their struggles, learning style, and mind map after the session is over. I made sure students can’t manually edit any of their own performance data afterward, so there is no way to inflate a score by hand. I really enjoyed working on this and it gave me a better understanding of how Model Context Protocol works.

I decided to switch it up a little on Wednesday and work from the MLK Library instead. I liked the grand reading room on the third floor, and worked there that entire day. Afterwards, I went for our weekly potluck and attended a work meeting later that evening. It was nice to meet with my team for the first time this week.

Thursday had two or three meetings back to back. It started raining hard that evening, so I stayed in and watched a movie, then ended up playing Catan with some of the other interns. Friday we went to the Boardroom after work for board games. We also went to a place right across the street which has large pizza slices. On our walk back to the dorms, we passed O Museum in The Mansion, which looked really pretty as it was lit up.

This weekend I mostly stayed in and worked a little while also taking time off. I did go to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, which was quite interesting because of the interactive exhibits. My roommate had been away this weekend so I went on a walk with her on Sunday when she got back, which I enjoyed too. Three weeks left in DC, and I’m looking forward to them.

Week 8

A Slow Week

This week was not too eventful. On Monday, after work, some of us went to Quigley’s for trivia, but instead ended up just hanging out there for a bit. On Tuesday, we had lunch with the AIP Foundation Team. I really enjoyed our conversation and the questions they asked us to understand how they can help more people. I also met the person who connected with my current mentor to have this position as a part of the SPS Internship Program. Then, I went to Analog Nights at the National Portrait Gallery in the evening. I did a still-life portrait and really enjoyed the process. It was nice being screen-free and focused on an activity for a couple of hours, and I also got to meet new people.

I was not feeling well on Wednesday so I worked from home. This week, we finally finished nine lessons and reviewed them together as a group. Now, we will be collectively making question banks for our spaced repetition retrieval tool. In the evening, I got together with the interns for game night. On Thursday, after work, I went to watch Macbeth at the Shakespeare Theatre with the other interns. I mostly stayed in over the weekend. I went to the Smithsonian Castle on Saturday for their show, Smithsonian Dreams. A lot of people had set up picnics there and it was a really wholesome experience.

Week 9

Lasts

This week definitely felt longer. On Monday, I had a productive work day at the office. On Tuesday, we got the opportunity to get a private tour of the National Air and Space Museum with Dr. Teasel Muir-Harmony, a curator of their Apollo collection. The level of detail and insight she could provide was much more than any of the displays did, and I really enjoyed the museum. After that, a few other interns and I went to get food and gelato, which was nice.

This week, my mentor was at the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) conference. He gave a talk explaining our project and how we are aiming to optimize the use of AI in the classroom through our course. He received great feedback which will also be helpful to implement. This week, I revamped the entire retrieval tool, so it interleaves topics and not just concepts within a topic. We also added per-lab history so the website can record improvements in students better and make sure that the questions of the retrieval tool are also based on their prelab progress so far. I really enjoyed working on these system design features.

On Friday, I went to the Sculpture Garden for Jazz in the Garden by Red Baraat. Although it was crowded, I enjoyed having a little picnic with one of my college friends who just got back to D.C. The next day, I decided to go back to the Air and Space Museum to look at the rest of the exhibits and really enjoyed it. I like how experiential and immersive some of the short films they have are. After that, I met up with the interns in the evening. Sunday was mostly spent working and planning for the busy week ahead. I have mixed feelings about this being our last blog post already. This summer experience was good, gave me a lot of exposure, allowed me to meet new people and learn about their work, and get to know the cohort of interns!

Week 10

Final Presentation

I’m writing this blog post from my sixteen-hour flight, trying to condense the entire experience of this summer. This week was definitely my favorite. On Monday after work, we went to Quigley’s for one last trivia. We came 6th I think, but I really enjoyed just hanging out with everyone there for a couple of hours.

On Tuesday, I presented my final draft of the website to my entire team. I added everyone as test users for the website and received feedback after they had time to play around with it. Comparing the current version to the first draft that we had ideated, I realized how much work has gone into making it functional this entire summer and how much I enjoyed leading the full-stack development process. I also had been wanting to check out the National Portrait Gallery for some time so I went there after work. It was really nice.

Wednesday was my final meeting with my entire team. I was sad to leave, but I knew that most people on my team will continue working till the end of August and make sure all our course materials are ready before leaving. It is nice to have an end goal for the project and we are all excited to see how the Fall 2026 UC Merced course goes! After work, some of us went to Bodega Taqueria. I enjoyed that and we also had our last potluck/game night with all the interns that day. I felt nostalgic about the summer but had a good time.

On Thursday, some of us went to Pearls Bagels in the morning, which is definitely one of my favorite bagel places now. After that, we broke out into groups to practice our presentations. I enjoyed looking at others’ presentations and received great feedback which told me what I should focus on. Then, we went for lunch together after work. I spent the rest of the day packing.

The next day, we headed to the office at 8 a.m. to prepare for the presentations. I really enjoyed getting to meet Dr. John Mather. I also found all the presentations interesting and I think mine went well too, especially the question-answer session. After that, we had our last lunch at the office, clicked pictures and went back to Shenkman. Then, we walked to Georgetown and went to a cafe and Georgetown Cupcake. I had one final call with my mentor to talk about the presentation and future plans, then I continued to pack for the rest of the day. I met with the other interns in the evening and it was pretty fun. I did not realize how much I would miss this cohort and our internship until I left the next morning. I’m grateful for getting this opportunity and excited to see how our fall course goes!