Zhane Yamin, 2025 Mather Policy Intern - National Science Board

Biography

SPS Chapter: University of Michigan
Hey everyone! My name is Zhane Yamin and I’m a junior at the University of Michigan studying Physics with a minor in Complexity Science. I also currently work at Michigan’s student newspaper, The Michigan Daily, as co-Editor in Chief. I conduct research in a Quantum Optics lab at Michigan as well.My time as a physics student and as a journalist has made me interested in the intersection between science and the public, including science policy and science communication. The interplay between the development of new technology, their reception by the public and their regulation by the government fascinates me! After graduation, I’m hoping to continue to contribute to the wider field of scientific communication and policy.In my spare time, I love to read non-fiction books, hoop, produce music, and eat food that is a perfect balance of “tastes good” and “bad for your health.” Also my favorite equation is the Dirac equation because it’s pretty. Go blue!

Internship

Host: Mather Policy Intern – National Science Board

Internship Blog

Week 1: The work is mysterious and important

Hello friends, family, and future, present, and past interns.

You may have a lot of questions. I sure do: What does it mean to be alive? Who am I? Is that a Severance reference in the title? Is anything significant in this chaotic, incomprehensible world of ours? Why is Jenna so afraid of birds? Does her fear extend to other winged creatures? And finally, what is an “internship?”

Hopefully by the end of these 10 weeks, I’ll have the answer to at least one of those questions.

First a formal introduction: Hi! My name is Zhane, though some people call me “uhnuisance” (not sure how they got that nickname from Zhane but it’s cool I guess...?). I’m one of the Mather Public Policy Interns this summer and I’m working at the National Science Board (which *clears throat* “establishes the policies of the National Science Foundation and serves as advisor to Congress and the President.”). In a more civilian capacity, I’m going into my senior year at the University of Michigan, where I spend the total extent of my waking life on words (journalism) and symbols (physics).

Work-wise, my first week at the NSB was great! The view from the office is amazing and everyone has been very nice and helpful as I’m getting the hang of things. It’s cool, and a bit daunting, to be surrounded by so many intelligent people. The first few days have mostly been reading and getting to know people, though it sounds like I’m in store for a busy summer.

Of course, I’ve also been getting acquainted with DC and the other interns! The first few days I was getting my bearings and getting over this weird jetlag that I had, even though I didn’t change any time zones (I slept for 12 and half hours straight on Wednesday night). During orientation on Tuesday, Maia, Kalen, JJ and I won the marshmallow-spaghetti tower contest by a sizeable margin. That was lit. I also got a chance to catch up with some UMich/Daily people who are also in DC. That was also lit.

On Friday, we went to the Trimble Lecture, where I learned that the words that describe objectivity in scientific imaging also describe the progression of my life philosophy with a good deal of accuracy (Idealism, Mechanical Objectivity, Trained Judgement). After the lecture, the interns went to Tonic for karaoke. Riley and I made Gloria Gaynor proud. On Saturday, Maia, Jenna and I took on the Natural History Musuem and the Wharf. I got a Glizzy from Shake Shack. My takeaway: Diversification has been good for them. Then I watched Dune with Kavin, Grace, JJ, and James. My takeaway: Oscar Isaac has an amazing beard.

I think that’s all I have for this week. If you haven’t watched Severance, watch it.

- Zhane Y.

Week 2: The largest waterfall in the world

Hello everyone!
I hope you are all doing well I’m reporting in from the 19^th floor of the National Science Foundation, where the elevators are super fancy, and the kitchenette’s are well stocked. This past week went by pretty fast, so let me try to summarize what the deal was.
Pretty much all week I was working from the NSB office. Since I usually get escorted out, I have had some very nice metro ride conversations with my mentor and some other NSB people. I really appreciated those. This past week the busiest, partly because I wanted to get a good amount of work done before I left for San Francisco on Thursday (more on that later). Generally, I was working on some statistical and outreach stuff. I’ve been able to flex my programming muscles a little bit so far, which I wasn’t really anticipating, but it’s been fun to actually USE my skills to complete an actual task instead of a homework assignment. On Wednesday, I carried two of the SPS internship boxes back to the hall ALMOST by myself. Shoutout Maia and Naomi. Y’all are the goat.

Tuesday was by far the busiest day. There were three science policy events on the Hill that I tried to catch and take some notes on. The first was about NSF impacts on community college students, which was really interesting and also there was free lunch but it was also very interesting. I dilly dallied for an hour with some NSB people and then went to t h e s t a t e o f t h e s c i e n c e address given by NASEM (and a panel with an NSB member!). In short, the state of the science is – bad. Though as I always like to say, it’s not bad situation if it gets you somewhere. One time I accidentally didn’t say hi to someone I tangentially knew and then she hated me but then we become very close. Does that sort of premise apply here? Maybe I’ll let Marcia McNutt decide if she reads this.

On a more serious note, I have been learning SO much about science policy. I mean, it is fascinating: What incentives drive certain people to make decisions that would drive certain other people to make other decisions and learning how to balance and amalgamate that into a cohesive message for scientific priorities is pretty spectacular. It seems like we’re at a very interesting time in science policy, so I’m feeling a lot of innovative spirit which I’m very much feeding off of and feel very close to.
Speaking of very close, I left on Thursday to San Francisco to visit some grad schools and some friends for the weekend. I love the Bay Area so I had a great time. There was really good Indian food and really good Mexican food. I also saw the new Wes Anderson Movie (in the front row, so my neck still hurts). That was pretty lit. I also saw a 2 foot tall waterfall. It may very well be the largest waterfall in the world. Anyways, I’ll keep it short for this week. See you soon!

- Zhane Y.

Week 3: Enjoying Each Week Equally

What up SPS!
Some of the interns (a population representative of all rooms within Shenkman, therefore reaching quorum and allowing us to make decisions on behalf of all the interns) and I had a great conversation about some dairy items. Two and a half big takeaways: Maia really hates Vanilla Soy Milk, JJ is particular about his cheese selection, and, as an avid outsourcer of labor, he very well may be paying James to cut his cheese blocks.

Me? I’ve never really been a big cheese block guy. Too unwieldy. I like my food like I like to consume media. Short-form and bite-sized or just slightly larger. I have never been a huge fan of long stuff like TV Shows (which I am classifying as long because the story plays out over 10s of hours, and don’t tell me it’s an episode-by-episode thing because many episodes across many shows are not isolated plotlines). I’ll take my movies and Instagram reels, thank you.

With the storytelling flavor aside, I’m going to tell you all about my week in a non-linear storytelling fashion. So, all this definitely happened, but not in this order.

We celebrated Saniya’s birthday and Maia made a (really good) vanilla cake that definitely used the ingredients that JJ and James got from Target. After coming back from work and being awake for around 26 hours, the dorm bed felt like a commercial mattress, and I snoozed for a very long time. JJ and James also got me toilet paper, so W JJJ. I realized that all the other interns have more hospitable looking rooms than me and Kavin, but that’s okay because it’s our presence that makes it a home. Because of the parade on Saturday, pretty much all NSF staffers worked from home starting Wednesday. I went to the Congressional Baseball game and saw the Republicans absolutely demolish the Democrats. NSB stuff has been chugging along, and I’ve been absolutely killing my To-Do list! I went to the mall with the other interns, and we tossed around a Football, and we (maybe not Maia) lamented the existence of small bugs. Final highlight: Going to the orchestra on Saturday! Super fun experience and hearing Mahler’s 2^nd symphony was truly something I will remember forever and ever and ever and ever.

I hope you enjoyed that Tarantino-style rundown. With all of these things happening, it’s important to remind myself to enjoy each other equally, lest I fail to appreciate them at all. I think that’s it for this blog. Catch y’all next week.

- Zhane Y.

Week 4: Page 197 slaps

Hi everyone!
I’m a few days late on this so sorry about that. Last week was a pretty chill week in terms of what was going on, kinda just still making progress on a few of the different projects that I was given. Most of that time was spent learning the OpenAlex API and how to extract data from it. Not gonna lie, this code I wrote is pretty cool.

The weekend was chill, I spent some time at the actual DuPont Circle and at some coffee shops around it. I also made my way to Union Market where I had some really good Peruvian food. We toured NIST on Wednesday, which was very cool. We took the Standard Van to the Standard Building and ate Standard lunch and got caught in Standard rain. But maybe the real standards were the friends we made along the way?

We also celebrated James’ birthday on Sunday! Thankfully, I was finished with my superheroism early enough to make it back for the celebration. James and I then dipped out for a second to smash. 3 rounds of Smash later we called it game. I will leave the reader to decide who won.

I’ll keep this one short, There is a lot to tell you next week, I think.
- Zhane Y.

Week 5: Optics and Design

So, HUD is taking our building , I guess. I’m not too sure what the timeline is. Needless to say, that was an interesting day at work.
Last week at work was probably the busiest yet, but also the most productive. I’m still working on some bibliometric and funding analysis using OpenAlex, and I’m also starting to read a little bit more about quantum technology to hopefully inform a project in the last few weeks of the internship. Also, I had a chance to do some writing for our press releases, and it made me nostalgic for The Daily. I guess you can take the kid out of the newsroom but not the newsroom out of the kid.

Also, we’re halfway through??? Life is crazy man. I spent this weekend in New York City with some friends. I had an amazing time — usually I find NYC a little too overstimulating but I think good company made it better. Unfortunately, I spent a little too much money, so it’s gonna be ramen for the next few weeks. In NYC we saw Marcello Hernandez at a comedy club (but, like, he wasn’t performing he was just there). We also got on someone’s TikTok live? I think they were influencers. Lastly, interns, if you guys are reading this, I really stress that you exercise extreme caution buying food at Western Market.

Man, these just keep getting shorter. Well, in our current attention economy, it’s probably better to keep things short and sweet. Literacy rates are dropping anyways. See you guys next week!
-Zhane Y.

Week 6: The fourth appendix

Hey everyone!

You know, when you’re not working inside of Tatte for 9 hours straight, DC is actually pretty beautiful. That white tiling can only be pleasant for so long. I’ve made it a personal goal to go to different coffee shops across the DC area and get work done. So far, I’ve made it to quite a few different areas: DuPont, Union Square, NoMa, Capitol Hill, DuPont again, and Adams Morgan. It’s been nice to get out there and explore the city more, maybe to the chagrin of the more home-oriented side of me.

This past week wasn’t as eventful as the last. Still focusing on creating data analytics tools for policy analysis and also helping out with certain policy tasks here and there as people need it. The July Board meeting is coming up so I’m looking forward to how eventful that week is going to be, and supposedly the week before board meetings is also packed so this might be the last “chill” week of my internship. I’ll try to savor it and, of course, report back to you, O diligent reader, what my workload actually looks like.
I have also increased my resolve to turn on my networking mode and start to actually take advantage of the super cool people and opportunities that the NSF is connected with. I’m glad I waited, though, as it’s nice to have a firm grasp on what I’m doing at the NSF so that I can have a better idea in terms of what I want to contextualize the conversations with. I will report back on that as well.

July 4^th weekend was nice. I kinda bummed around for most of it, but it was some very nice bumming indeed. I got a switch 2 in NYC last weekend, so I finished playing Pokemon Scarlet. Great game, couldn’t be more satisfied with my purchase.
Lastly, I have some friends coming to town over the next two weekends and I’m very excited. I’ve planned out a bunch of things for us to do (...mostly things I haven’t gotten a chance to do myself yet...), and I think it’ll be the most “DC” stuff I’ll be doing this summer!
Lots of knowledge ahead. Can’t wait.
-Zhane

Week 7: Chikhai Bardo

Hello everyone! I am totally writing this on time!
This week was networking week! Amanda, my mentor, connected me with a lot of cool people that she’s met while working in science policy and otherwise and I have to say: Every single one of them was SO cool. It just still baffles me that this is people’s like real job. Working in DC. Engaging with politics. Pushing science forward. I’ve been extremely grateful to be here this summer and I will continue to be.

I went to my first DC happy hour this week! JJ was there as well, and we had a great time. I got a few free books (and even one signed by the author, who taught at the University of Michigan) about science policy. It’s been nice to use this lighter week to get my bearings and start orienting myself for the future – i.e. what do I want to do with the rest of my life and how can I use my time in DC to really figure that out. Some might say I’m a few weeks too late. I would say they were a few weeks too early.
I had a great time exploring DC this weekend with some friends! We went literally everywhere and I spent a little too much money, but hey what’re you going to do amiright? DuPont Circle, Georgetown, Adams-Morgan, Columbia Heights, H-street/Near northeast – This whole city is full of surprises and very good food.

It was a week of firsts – I got assigned my first one pager with a draft due on Monday. It’s a very quick turnaround, but I’m happy to be able to work on it semi-independently (Amanda has been an absolute life saver). The idea came up very quickly and I’m happy that they trusted me to do it. Also, an opportunity to try out some of my new data infrastructure....
Another first was that I saw two movies in two days and it was also the first time I’ve seen those movies (though that was not my first time seeing a movie for the first time). We saw F1 and Superman. I liked both, maybe Superman a little bit more after the fact and F1 a little more during the fact. It had the same director as top gun so it was very manly and action packed.
The last first (haha) I’ll mention was trying Ethiopian and Laotian food for the first time! I went to Chercher and Thip Kao in Columbia heights. SO GOOD. I also downloaded this app called Belli and it seems pretty cool (I guess it’s like letterboxd but for food?).

Anyways, it was a packed week with excursions and a little less packed with work. I wonder if next week will be more packed with work (Not so subtle foreshadowing).
- zhane Y.

Week 8: Cold harbor

What a week.
If my life was a TV show this would definitely have been the final episode of the season. Or maybe the penultimate, because the Board meeting is coming up and that’s probably going to be pretty exciting. Does that mean next week is gonna be even more busy....

I became an official NSF staffer on Monday!!! Haha only 8 weeks in (better than the “never” that I was expecting). It is so nice to have autonomy and the ability to leave the building whenever and to wherever I want. It is unfair for me to say that, though, because Amanda would routinely insist on me letting her know if I wanted to leave and I denied. But honestly, now that I have that ability, I realized I don’t even want to leave. I just like knowing that I could.

So that was on Monday, I got my ID card which is not flattering at all but its okay you’re supposed to conceal it anyways. I also had my draft one-pager due on Monday. And pretty much every day after that was editing the one-pager based on a new round of edits by a new group of people. It was extremely informative and I learned a lot about how the policy documentation process works at the NSB, but it was also a little bit of a steep learning curve. Amanda really helped out with a lot of stuff, so shout out to her!
I was also getting a little Deja vu from working at The Daily: I have this piece of writing that I need to have written, edited, designed, and editing about 50 more times on a very crunched timeline while also managing everyone’s time and, of course, being kind. Its so weird that I miss that place, but I do. But it’s been really fun working on it and I cannot wait to hold it in my hands. It is going to be so satisfying.

This weekend I had another set of friends visit DC and we went around and did stuff too. We went to a comedy show in Adams-Morgan (for free) and it was really funny and also really not funny. Though the funny moments outweighed the not funny moments. The bouncer had yellow eyes. I think he was wearing contacts. Food was good – Wiseguy pizza, Ted’s Bulletin, Thip Kao (again). AND, I saw Eddington, a new Ari Aster movie about 2020. What a trip.

Anyways, that was my week. A lot of work! Excited to meet the board memebrs and start preparing for my final presentation though.
-Zhane Y.

Week 9: Special perks

Phew! The Board meeting was C-R-A-Z-Y. Very fast paced, very on the fly. It reminded me of some of my younger days at The Daily (oh man, I miss that place). It was an absolutely surreal experience talking to the different board members, who are each pretty much leaders in their fields (astrophysics, AI, chemistry, etc.) from industry and academia alike. I finished up my AI and Quantum Fact Sheet edits by Monday, printed them out by Wednesday, picked them up and had them ready for our visits to the Hill on Thursday. I met 3 members of congress! That was pretty cool. Anyways, I’m very tired, so I’ll leave it at that, but it was a super cool experience.

Also, I went to Boulder, CO this weekend to visit some friends. Mountains are pretty cool.
- Zhane Y.

Week 10: Severance

The last week! I was a little nervous about my presentation and making sure it was good, but it was a wonderful Thursday. I also got to do some cool coffee chatting to round out the end of my internship, specifically with a knowledgeable GAO staff member who also has done a lot of work on data infrastructure (the same kind of stuff that I did during my internship) and with Dario Gil, former VP of research and to-be-senate-confirmed Undersecretary of Science for the DOE. He had some really good advice about career stuff and life stuff and everything in between. NSB rocks!

This week has been full of goodbyes and see you laters, which has been very bittersweet. In an optimistic spirit, let’s reflect on beginnings instead of ends. Specifically, the beginnings of this blog series.

In the beginning of the blog, I asked some questions.

What does it mean to be alive? Who am I? Is that a Severance reference in the title? Is anything significant in this chaotic, incomprehensible world of ours? Why is Jenna so afraid of birds? Does her fear extend to other winged creatures? And finally, what is an “internship?”

My conclusions, as follows.

Everything. Zhane. Yes. Insignificance is significance. I don’t know. I don’t think so. Half a summer camp for young adults and half a place where you become a better version of yourself. Someone who has more skills, who has more connections, who can navigate more situations, and who knows more about the world around them and what they want to do with their life.
I think.

Thank you everyone for making this such an amazing time. Innie, outie.
- Zhane Y.