Casey Roepke (she/her), 2021 AIP Mather Policy Intern

Biography

SPS Chapter: Mt. Holyoke College

Hello, everyone! My name is Casey Roepke (she/her), and I am a recent graduate of Mount Holyoke College, where I double majored in Physics and Politics with an interdisciplinary, pre-professional track in Journalism, Media, and Public Discourse. I’m a lifelong Californian, growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area. This summer, I am so excited to have the opportunity to (virtually) work with the Society of Physics Students as a Mather Public Policy Intern at NIST!

As an interdisciplinary student, I am especially passionate about the intersections between science and policy. I hope to one day work at this intersection to craft policy around climate and energy issues, though I am also interested in space policy.

Outside of academics, I am a bit of a media snob, so you can often find me watching classic film noir movies or nose-deep in a science fiction story (Ursula K. Le Guin and Ted Chiang are my personal favorites!). I love swimming in the Pacific Ocean, walking my dog around the neighborhood, and I am almost always down for a bike ride.

I’m so excited to be working for SPS this summer, and I can’t wait to bring you along on all of my amazing experiences!

Internship

Host: National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Project

Abstract

The first year of a new administration brings new energy to government, as the President signs new legislation, staffs political appointments, and crafts their political priorities. My role as an AIP Mather Policy Intern at the Office of Advanced Manufacturing (OAM) in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) allowed me to explore the nuance in crafting and implementing science policy to support advanced manufacturing innovation and competitiveness in the first year of a new administration. OAM is constantly creating contingency plans to deal with legislative uncertainties, and we often treat a piece of legislation as simultaneously “alive” and “dead” (just like Schrödinger’s cat) to prepare for different science policy outcomes. In this presentation, I will draw on my internship experience — from advisory groups to education budgets, from outreach and engagement strategies to reading Congressional bills — to demonstrate the fast-paced, intense, and fulfilling environment of science policy at NIST.

Final Presentation

Internship Blog

Week 1: Cicadas, Calendars, and Communications

Did you know that every seventeen years, cicadas descend en masse across the Eastern U.S., bringing with them a sound akin to a high-pitched buzz the volume of a moving train? Well, as a lifelong resident of San Francisco, California, I didn’t know this, but 2021’s cicada summer was the topic of conversation during my onboarding meeting at NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Initially, I had been a bit nervous (and a bit sad) about interning remotely — would I connect with my mentors and other members of the team? Would I feel isolated, working alone on my computer 3000 miles away from my internship site? But my first day as an AIP Mather Public Policy intern caused these questions and worries to quickly evaporate; not only did I feel instantly welcome and at home with my NIST colleagues, but they also took care to explain to me the nuisance of the swarms of insects currently plaguing Maryland. They even sent me audio recordings of the cicadas outside their homes, which I’ve taken to playing during working hours for the bona fide Maryland summer experience. Just kidding.

Staying on theme, my first week of this internship has, at times, felt like my head was full of buzzing bugs. The 2021 SPS intern cohort started out the program with an orientation on Tuesday morning, bright and early at 8 a.m. Pacific Time. Am I just a little worried about being three hours behind out on the West Coast? Nah — I rowed crew in college. I’m used to waking up before dawn. Luckily, 8 a.m. wasn’t too bad, and any last vestiges of sleepiness made way for pure excitement. With a mix of inspirational remarks (“As of today, you are a working physicist,” said Jack Hehn, the previous director of SPS. “AIP sees you as the future of physics.”) and goofiness (Brad Conrad, the current director of SPS, passed down advice to “never take yourself too seriously” while wearing a reddish-pink bucket hat), we were brought into the internship program and introduced to our fellow interns. Despite being conducted over Zoom, the orientation was engaging and interactive, and we even played virtual Pictionary. My deepest apologies go out to my competitors: I’m a terrible artist. No one was able to accurately guess even one of my drawings.

Next came the cicada meeting — and by that, I mean that I met my mentor, Lisa Jean Fronczek, and the rest of her office. I was so excited to hear about the projects they were working on in our all-office meeting, but I have to admit, I had Google open on the side so I could search the meanings of new terms and phrases they were referencing. The government sure loves a good acronym!

I also started on my first project, which was updating the Manufacturing USA Wikipedia page. Manufacturing USA is a network of institutes which promote advanced manufacturing technologies and competition across the U.S. Reading through institute websites and other context helped me better understand the mission of the office, which will be helpful as I continue to adjust into my new working environment!

During the rest of the week, I attended lots of meetings, training sessions, and webinars. On Thursday, the SPS intern cohort had a Meet & Greet with Dr. David Helfand, a Professor of Astronomy at Columbia University and the AIP Board Chair. I was excited to hear his insights on topics that I am passionate about, including physics, policy, and science communication. Over the last year, the pandemic has emphasized the importance of science to the broader community. From David’s perspective, we can learn from the pandemic about how to better communicate science to non-scientists. We learned that most people’s concerns are local, not global, which means we can evolve our messaging to focus on the present and on local communities. He left us with the advice that climate change is fundamentally a political problem, and as scientists and physicists, we can and should get involved in the political process. I’m super interested in science policy, so this was an affirming and inspiring note to end on!

The end of my week was mostly taken up by technical troubleshooting — it took me a while to get set up in the NIST internal system, and once I was in it took a while to adjust to using Microsoft Outlook and Teams (I tried to copy a scheduled event from my mentor’s calendar and instead accidentally sent a new calendar invite to everyone on the original guest list — so embarrassing!). I also had the opportunity to join Zara, our Communications Director, for a meeting about a writing project. I learned about her experience with science communications, which seemed fitting given the Meet & Greet with Dr. David Helfand the day before.

Whew! My first week (er, four days) felt like a whirlwind, so by Friday night I was totally ready for a chill evening with the rest of the intern cohort as we tuned in for our first Bad Physics Movie Night. “Ant-Man” definitely fit the bill on the “Bad Physics” part, but it was funny to laugh about the incredibly wrong particle physics and point out every misuse of the term “quantum.” Plus, I learned that I wasn’t the only intern to have made an accidental Outlook calendar bluff this week. Commiseration and community!

I’m excited to delve deeper into some projects next week, but for now, I’ll listen to this cicada recording again and buzz off.

Cheers,

Week 2: Networking, Newsletters, and nist.gov

At the end of our first full week with the internship program, I logged out of my work email account, closed my computer, and accidentally fell asleep on my couch. My week was engaging, thrilling, and absolutely exhausting. I think the exhaustion is partly a byproduct of adjusting to a new rhythm and new responsibilities, but also a result of spending so many hours on my computer and in virtual meetings or webinars. I might have to break out my “blue light glasses,” which are supposed to minimize eye strain by filtering out blue light from electronic screens, but they probably just “work” via the placebo effect.

This week was pretty jam-packed for me as I continued learning about NIST and the Office of Advanced Manufacturing. My calendar was full of meetings, webinars, and online trainings. On Monday, I was able to attend NIST’s monthly communications meeting, which meant I had the opportunity to hear about outreach and writing efforts from communications experts within NIST. Two attendees started their careers as AIP interns, just like me! Later that day, I sat down with Robert Rudnitsky, the Associate Director at NIST’s Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office (AMNPO) (See? The acronyms never end!). Robert was kind enough to speak about his path from growing up in Brooklyn to his current role and all the adventures in between. One of my goals for this internship is networking, especially using the network that I have access to for learning more about the career trajectories of everyone in the office in the hopes that I might discover potential paths for myself too. I enjoyed learning about Robert’s past and listening to his advice. Monday evening, the SPS intern cohort got together for a game night. We played Pictionary — quickly becoming one of our favorite virtual games — and chatted about the overwhelming and exciting parts of our internships so far.

Tuesday and Wednesday were also filled with learning opportunities, mostly in the form of big virtual meetings, webinars, and some trainings on how to use data and Excel more effectively. I started brainstorming ideas for longer-term summer projects, but in the meantime I worked on a couple of smaller tasks. I continued revisions on the Manufacturing USA Wikipedia page, though I faced a small set-back when I discovered that, since I’m working in the Manufacturing USA office, I am technically not allowed to edit the Wikipedia page directly. Luckily, my colleagues came up with some potential work-arounds. I also started compiling links for individual Manufacturing USA institute newsletter sign-ups, which gave me an excuse to poke around their websites again and learn more about the institute goals and programs. One of the other small tasks that needed to get done was updating the institute contact sheet with new positions and contact information, which again allowed me to hyper-focus on each institute and determine the organizational structure of the institute.

On Wednesday, I had my first individual mentoring meeting with Lisa and Robert. We spoke about potential summer projects, but they also shared useful advice and insights which really made a difference in my approach to my work and also my confidence level. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend checking out Gina’s intern blog post from Week 1, where she talks about imposter syndrome and how to combat it. I definitely have been experiencing imposter syndrome — where I question if I’m good enough to have this opportunity, and internally criticize myself whenever I make a mistake or have to ask for help. Still, I embrace imposter syndrome as part of the journey, and my mentoring meeting was helpful because it reminded me that I’m just starting to learn the ropes at NIST and mistakes are part of that learning curve.

Towards the end of the week, I had a couple more networking opportunities. On Thursday, Brad Conrad led a professional networking workshop for the SPS intern cohort, which gave us all an excuse to practice our elevator pitches. Later that day, I attended the American Association for an event put on by Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science & Technology Policy Fellow Affinity Group at the invitation of Zack, an AAAS fellow placed in our office. Zack introduced Tanya Das, the Chief of Staff at the Office of Science in the Department of Energy, and Tanya shared her experiences working in science policy. Her unique perspective, brought forth by her background in science, mirrored many of my values and aspirations and it was inspiring to hear her speak.

On Friday, I joined a happy hour event with the SPS executive committee, complete with — of course — a few rounds of online Pictionary. This time, we used a physics-themed word bank, which made for some very entertaining drawings, especially of Albert Einstein. At the bottom of this post, you can see a screenshot I snapped of the cohort and executive committee post-Pictionary.

At the very end of my day on Friday, I called my mentor, Lisa, to touch base on one of the tasks I’ve been working on. She was very helpful (as she always is), but it was also really nice to check in with her and hear more about the intricacies and moving parts of the office. I have some larger tasks coming up this next week, and I’m excited to hit the ground running on Monday!

Cheers,

Week 3: Interviews, Institutes, and the ICA

I had hoped the third week of this internship program would find me reaching the top of the learning curve, but it came as a surprise when I experienced that ‘aha!’ moment of things starting to click. Transition periods are challenging for me, but I’ve learned to lean into the discomfort of not knowing what to do and how to do it because, even if it takes longer than I want it to, eventually I will reach that ‘aha’ moment.

For me, this week was the first time that I actually felt settled in my role. Sure, I still asked my mentor plenty of questions, and there were moments when I made mistakes and had to spend a lot of time trying to correct them, but I also found a good balance between independent work and engaging with my colleagues. I’m starting to actually feel confident in knowing why I was working on my chosen projects.

I think one tangible aspect of my week that helped me feel more confident and comfortable was my individual mentor meetings. Having a set time twice a week to check in with Lisa and Robert allowed me to ask questions, problem solve, seek feedback, and hear their advice on my tasks.

I attended fewer meetings and webinars this week, and as a result I had more time to dig deeper into my projects. I finished updating the institute contact information sheet, which I had spent a great deal of time on (and learned some Excel skills in the process!). I also learned more about proposed reorganization efforts of the Office of Advanced Manufacturing.

On Wednesday, I conducted an interview with John Roth, a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of New Hampshire. He previously served as an American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Fellow at NIST. Along with Zara, the Communications Director for the Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office, I am working on a communications project about NIST fellows. Dr. Roth shared a lot of amazing ideas about advanced manufacturing and demonstrated a truly inspiring passion for giving back in public service. I look forward to conducting more interviews with other fellows!

My biggest project for this week was reading and analyzing a piece of legislation called the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act. The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, or U.S. ICA for short (affectionately pronounced as ‘you-seek-ah’), recently passed the Senate and is aimed at investing in advanced manufacturing development, expansion, and innovation. Manufacturing USA is mentioned 41 times in the 2000+ page bill, and I was tasked with finding each of those mentions and deciphering (1) what Manufacturing USA was being asked to do, (2) who Manufacturing USA was being asked to collaborate with, and (3) why the section is important. While I have some experience in reading political texts, this was a long and complicated one, so it took me a lot of time and energy to understand the legislative language. I took a lot of notes and converted them into a two-column document with the actual bill text on the left and my “translation” on the right. I hope that my work will be useful for others in the office!

On the SPS side of things, the intern cohort got together to play a virtual version of Werewolf (also known as Mafia) — and wow, I did not know how talented my fellow interns were at acting! Unfortunately, I was the first to die in the game... but it was lots of fun nevertheless!

We also attended a lecture by Dr. Kiril Streletzky, the incoming SPS National President. He spoke about his Light Scattering Spectroscopy Lab and the value of undergraduate physics research. As an undergraduate physics researcher myself, I found his lecture very interesting!

In unrelated news, I learned a very interesting and entertaining fact this week. Allen Astin was the director of NIST from 1951 until 1969. His son, John Astin, played Gomez Addams in “The Addams Family.” John Astin’s son, Sean Astin, played Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings franchise. So, in a way, one could argue that NIST is responsible for the success of the LoTR movies. How’s that for a fun fact? :)

On Thursday, President Biden signed into law the observance of Juneteenth as a federal holiday. Because NIST operates within the Department of Commerce, we did not work on Friday in observance of Juneteenth. I highly encourage you to learn about the history of Juneteenth and the legacy that extends into this year’s recognition of the holiday. I recommend this link as a starting place.

Cheers,

Week 4: Outreach, Organization, and OAM

It’s hard to believe that four weeks have already passed since I began the SPS summer internship! There has been so much learning and growth already, and I’m excited to see what other experiences are in store for me as we enter the second half of the internship!

I hit the ground running on Monday with the communications project I’ve been working on with Zara, our office’s Communications Director. After selecting quality quotes from the interview I conducted with Dr. Roth, I wrote a draft of a “lead-in” for the article — essentially an introduction into the context of the article’s topic, along with a few quotes to highlight the importance of the topic. At Mount Holyoke, I minored in journalism and wrote articles for the campus newspaper, but this kind of feature writing is new to me. It definitely took more effort to emulate the style of other internal NIST publications, and luckily Zara gave me a lot of really helpful feedback that I am incorporating into my second draft.

After choosing my first long-term project last week, I began the brainstorming portion of my work. I’m hoping to develop an outreach and engagement strategy for Manufacturing Day specifically aimed at K-12+ students. As part of my brainstorming and initial research, I seized the opportunity to reach out to Noah, the SPS SOCK intern ! Noah is great, and I’ve really enjoyed his blog posts so far about creating engaging content and physics demos for students. I thought it would be a good idea to learn about which outreach strategies work best for different age groups — and, selfishly, I wanted to learn more about his internship! We had a fun conversation about science demonstrations and engagement strategies, and I came away from that meeting with a lot of ideas to try for my project. Thanks, Noah!

Every Tuesday and Thursday, the Office of Advanced Manufacturing (OAM) holds all-staff meetings, normally to go over updates from our directors or to focus on special topics. This week, our OAM meetings ran long to discuss my analysis of the U.S. ICA legislation and to strategize potential collaborations between Manufacturing USA and other partners mentioned in the bill. I have to admit, it was a bit scary to be considered the “expert” (in significant air quotes) on this bill, but because I spent so much time reading through it, I enjoyed joining the conversation about interpretations of the bill. Reading legislation is definitely an important skill, but interpreting that legislation is just as important.

After looking at my U.S. ICA analysis, some other members of the office were concerned about the exact phrasing of two sections of the bill. We ended up brainstorming revisions and additions to those sections that clarified the intentions of the bill. Who knew that the inclusion of one or two words could potentially make a difference for huge financial appropriations? It was exciting to actually suggest changes to an existing piece of legislation, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that those revisions are incorporated into the bill.

On Friday, the SPS intern cohort had the opportunity to meet Dr. John Mather, the Nobel Prize in Physics laureate, brilliant astrophysicist, and the sponsor of my science policy internship! My AIP Mather Public Policy Internship is funded through the John and Jane Mather Foundation for Science and the Arts, which is funded by Dr. Mather’s Nobel award. I was so excited to finally meet Dr. Mather and thank him for this incredible opportunity to learn more about the intersection between science and government. He gave a stimulating lecture about cosmic instability, and was eager to answer our questions about his NASA project and other aspects of cosmology.

Towards the end of the week, after watching a great informational webinar by my mentor — go Lisa! — I tried to get organized for the upcoming week. Because I’ve been working on a larger project at the same time as more urgent projects surrounding U.S. ICA and other policy analysis, I’ve had to really focus on my organizational skills to stay on task and manage my time efficiently and effectively. Remote work is still challenging, but I’m starting to really fall into a rhythm.

Looking forward to July!

Cheers,

Week 5: Councils, Committees, and Cybersecurity

As a 2021 graduate, my entire senior year of college was online due to COVID-19. In order to get absolutely anything done and keep my motivation high, I relied on deadlines and the adrenaline of turning in assignments, even if an email submission was much more anticlimactic than the situation required. For example, I submitted my thesis project — a 150 page political science paper — by clicking the send button on an email. Not quite the celebratory milestone I had wanted.

Still, I’ve learned to make those email submissions feel like accomplishments. This past week, I submitted several projects and tasks that I’ve been working on, and I felt that same relief and accomplishment on each one, which has helped me stay motivated and timely.

My week started off with interviewing Dr. Steve Schmid, a former Fellow in OAM, for my communications article for Connections (the internal NIST publication) that I’ve been working on. After hearing his experiences, I added a few of his quotes to my draft and submitted that rough draft (or “lead-in” — not the full article draft, but a general sketch of the direction I wanted to take it in) to Zara, the office’s Communications Director. Zara and I sat down to check in on the article early in the week and ended up having a great conversation about where the rest of the article was headed. I also pitched the idea of tailoring a second version of this article for a larger, outside-of-NIST audience. I’ve loved hearing from former and current OAM Fellows so far, and I think that publishing the article more widely could show how valuable their experience was, and encourage people to volunteer their time to NIST, too!

Tuesday morning, I attended a webinar called “U.S. Manufacturing Priorities for the Biden Administration and 117th Congress.” A pretty apt title, as essentially various representatives from the Biden Administration and Senator Schumer’s office spoke about which aspects of manufacturing they were prioritizing. I was taking notes for the office, trying to determine which of the Administration’s priorities best matched what work we’re doing. Good news: we’re already focusing on a ton of the priorities listed!

Because I didn’t have any meetings on Wednesday except for my check-in with my mentors, Lisa and Robert, I spent most of the day in high-intensity-work-mode. I was trying to turn around a white paper report (of sorts) on the various advisory boards, councils, and committees mentioned in the U.S. ICA and NDAA legislation. I ended up writing a summary of the advisory groups and recommending the level of involvement Manufacturing USA should take in each case, while also creating a chart breakdown with the details of each group. On Friday, I met with Don (one of the AAAS Fellows in the office) to go over my paper, and I think we’re going to bring it up at our next meeting. I am really enjoying learning about how much each individual word matters in a piece of legislation.

On Thursday, I was up bright and early — 7 a.m. my time — to attend the monthly meeting of the National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee on Advanced Manufacturing (NSTC and SAM respectively, yes I’m still learning new acronyms!). It was so interesting to hear updates from different agencies and learn how they all work together on projects related to advanced manufacturing.

One (stressful) highlight of this week was putting together a budget for cybersecurity education in under five hours with Lisa and Zack (AAAS Fellow). When Lisa submitted our plan, she credited Zack and me with helping her out — which felt crazy and big! As I’ve taken to saying with a huge dose of sarcasm, absolutely no one should trust me to think about money. Government budgets are huge amounts of money — but of course, so many people are involved with the work being done with those budgets, so a project can burn through a million dollars in a flash. Still, it doesn’t get any less crazy for me to hear about ten million dollar projects being on the low-end of some of the work being done in our arena.

Another definite highlight was attending a lecture by Dr. Melissa Phillips, a NIST research chemist who works to develop methods for food Standard Reference Materials (SRMs). Her lecture was so interesting — especially hearing about how she thinks about the food that we eat each day.

I’m enjoying my long weekend, ready to hit the ground running next week!

Cheers,

Week 6: Reports, Renewals, and Revisions

Even though the holiday weekend meant that this past work week was only four days long, I was very busy with some big projects and pulled a few long days in the virtual office. Work-life balance is good and important — but sometimes a deadline looms, and working towards meeting that deadline can mean rearranging your previously-held work rhythm. I’m lucky enough to feel passionate about the projects I’m working on in the office, so a late evening is more than welcome.

At the end of Week 5, I had finished writing a report on the advisory groups (committees, councils, etc) mentioned in the U.S. ICA and NDAA legislation. On Tuesday, I presented my report in a mentoring meeting with some of the members of the office. It launched a great conversation and also created a list of lingering questions. We decided that it would be productive to bring my report to our all-staff meeting for further discussion, which meant I was all of a sudden flung into intense preparation for that meeting! I drafted an agenda with key questions and discussion topics, and put together a presentation slide deck with an overview of my report and the relevant details and questions. On Thursday, in OAM’s all-staff meeting, I presented those slides (after Lisa’s and Zack’s helpful feedback) and led a discussion on how our office could best navigate the advisory boards in terms of staffing and coordination. The meeting was very productive and we reached some decisions as an office, which was my goal in leading that discussion. I was still very nervous about presenting, but overall I think it was a success! I wrapped up the week’s progress on this project by writing a summary of the decision points we reached as an office.

The other big task for this week was helping Robert with a NIST report on the Manufacturing USA institute renewal process. I spent many hours — and I mean many — wrangling appendix tables and Excel sheets for formatting, and I also line edited the full document.

Towards the end of the week, Zara and I received feedback on our communications article lead-in. The editors wanted us to take the piece in a completely different direction, which means re-interviewing and revisions galore. It’s an important lesson to learn how to take feedback without taking it personally — I am still proud of the work I submitted, but now I know how to change it to better fit the guidelines of our publication.

On Thursday, the SPS intern cohort — and our mentors — attended a virtual picnic with Dr. Rush Holt, a physicist and former U.S. Representative for New Jersey’s 12th congressional district. After hearing his inspiring talk about science policy, the interns hung around to play games and I got completely destroyed at trivia.

Cheers,

Week 7: Resilience, Resumes, and Reconciliation

Week 7 is in the books, and I have to say — it was hard thinking of a title for this week. I regret setting a naming convention of three alliterative topics for my blog posts! Oh well, hindsight is 20/20.

After last week’s exhausting (and exciting!) intensity, this week was a bit more relaxed. I was working on a couple projects, but without immediate deadlines. Later in the week, most of the others in the office were at the NIIMBL National Meeting. I saw some pictures of everyone together in person — it made me jealous, but in a good way.

After receiving some big feedback from our editors on the communications piece I drafted, Zara and I met to think about next steps and how to navigate that feedback. The feedback we received was pretty substantial, and we felt that we had the grounds to push back a little to try and compromise on the article’s direction. Learning how to take feedback is important, but so is knowing when to advocate for yourself. I was lucky to have Zara on the same page that I was! Resilience is SO important in this process.

Because most of the office was at the NIIMBL meeting, I was in charge of taking notes for one of our inter-agency meetings. Whew — trying to keep up with everyone’s updates was a hard task! But it also showed me how much I’ve learned over the course of the past seven weeks: I’m starting to recognize familiar acronyms automatically, and I know what grant competitions or education and workforce development efforts are underway.

On Thursday, Dr. Crystal Bailey, the Head of Career Programs at AIP, led a resume writing workshop for the SPS intern cohort. I thought I knew everything there was to know about resume writing — I was so wrong! We brainstormed different ways of approaching a resume in breakout rooms, and I learned a lot about highlighting important and relevant information and skills on my resume.

In the Office of Advanced Manufacturing, we are eagerly awaiting the reconciliation of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, which passed the Senate, with its counterpart bills in the House. A lot of my work this summer has been focused on understanding the U.S. ICA legislation, and I’m both excited and nervous to learn what will change before it (hopefully) becomes law.

Cheers,

Week 8: Editing, Engagement, and Education

It’s hard to believe that the summer internship is almost over! I’m definitely feeling the pressure to finish the last few projects on my plate before the 10 weeks come to a close, but I’m confident that I’ll be able to pull it off.

My first of two final projects is one that I’ve been working on the whole summer: a science communications piece about fellowship programs which bring manufacturing experts to the Office of Advanced Manufacturing. After conducting plenty of interviews and drafting a lead-in, Zara (OAM’s Communications Director) and I sat down for a revision planning meeting with the editors for Connections, the internal NIST publication — and the eventual home for my article. After our check-in, I left with a much better idea of how we would find a compromise between their edits and our direction; now it’s the hard part of actually finishing the article!

My other final project is just as exciting — I’m partnering with AIP/SPS to adapt their Psi* outreach and engagement activities for a manufacturing focus ahead of Manufacturing Day! This was a really exciting project that I had been working on for a while, but I finally connected with the one and only Brad Conrad, SPS Director, to hash out details and strategize for the most effective method of partnering our goals. Throughout the week, I brainstormed manufacturing repertoires and technologies (with the help of the rest of the OAM team) for a deck of manufacturing-themed cards to be used in playing a fun game, which in turn demonstrates the applications and impacts of manufacturing on important issues like transportation, energy, and more! I’m excited to see where this project ends up, and I hope it may demonstrate the importance of manufacturing to a student audience.

This week, the SPS intern cohort finished our physics demo competition, which you can watch here. It was harder than I imagined it would be to brainstorm a demonstration which displayed a simple physics concept, but everyone came up with such great demos! You can vote for your favorite here ... I’m not saying who you should vote for, but maybe someone with a name which rhymes with Shmasey Shmoepke? :)

On Friday, Kelley Rogers, the Technical Program Manager for the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL), was kind enough to sit down with me for an informational interview. One of the highlights of my internship has been learning about all the different paths people took to end up working at NIST. It’s been truly inspiring!

My highlight of the week was catching up with a couple of the other interns about our internships and what else we’ve been up to. Our consensus was that there should be an Olympic event for physicists. Canoe slalom, anyone?

Cheers,

Week 9: Tours, Twitter, and Titles

Although the past nine weeks have been an incredible learning experience that I am unbelievably grateful for, one of the definite downsides has been trying to navigate working virtually. Computer fatigue is real, people! This week, however, was a break from the screen time; Lisa, my mentor, set me up with an in-person tour at NextFlex, one of the Manufacturing USA institutes located in San Jose, California, just under an hour’s drive from me. On Wednesday afternoon, after my mentoring meeting, I drove down to NextFlex and was given a tour by their Director of Fab Operations, Art Wall. NextFlex engages in public-private partnerships to promote innovations in advanced manufacturing of Flexible Hybrid Electronics. Flexible Hybrid Electronics are electronic devices printed on flexible plastics with applications ranging from health to information to military. I was able to tour the whole facility, getting a close look at the actual printing and testing rooms, and I also saw a printer that was at least twice as tall as I was. Even though some of the information went over my head, it was such an amazing experience to actually see tangible examples of what I have been learning about this summer, especially in person. I’m so grateful to the NextFlex team and to Lisa for making this happen!

Another huge highlight of this week: swag! Lisa sent me a NIST hat and shirt, which I will certainly be rocking proudly, and I received a box of goodies from the SPS team as well. Ah, the perks of being an SPS/NIST intern...

Week 9 was packed to the brim with last-minute work to try to finish my final projects for this internship. I interviewed one last OAM Fellow on Monday, Dr. Gloria Weins, and finished writing my full draft of the communications article that I’ve been working on all summer. I’ve already done one round of edits after receiving feedback from Zara, and I hope to submit to the NIST editors in my last week. Then, later in the week, I turned my attention to my Manufacturing Day outreach project and prepared some social media plans to engage with students interested in manufacturing. I’m hoping to have some sort of Twitter roll-out of my virtual card game, but I’m still ironing out the details.

In between other meetings, including a great discussion about how OAM can be more proactive, I was working on my final presentation for the SPS Colloquium. Lessons learned: titles on slides can be hard, graphics are useful, and 6 minutes is too short for me to talk about all the experiences I’ve had this summer!

Photo #1: Made it to NextFlex!

Photo #2: Showing off some swag — NIST hat & SPS’s famous spherical cow!

Cheers,

Week 10: Takeaways, Talks, and Thank-yous

Well, the summer 2021 SPS internship program has come to a close. The past 10 weeks have felt as if they flew by! This week was full of sentimental reflection and goodbyes as I finished my last few projects and thought about my goals for this opportunity. I met with Lisa, my mentor, for an exit interview, and we had a great conversation about what I learned through working at NIST and what I can do to continue my professional growth.

Thursday was my last day in the office, and it was full of fun meetings and opportunities to reflect on my internship. I am so grateful for the entire Office of Advanced Manufacturing team for their support and mentorship.

On Friday, we held the 2021 SPS Internship Symposium. It was incredible to hear all of my fellow interns talk about their experiences, projects, and takeaways from this internship. You can watch the full symposium here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1eD9dOdhGM

I came into this internship with several goals, including: 1) Learn more about science policy 2) Network and make connections and 3) Make a lasting contribution to OAM. I can say confidently that I succeeded in reaching these goals! I learned so much about how government works, how science policy is implemented, and how valuable advanced manufacturing is to the United States.

Before I sign off for a final time, I have some thank-yous I would like to share.

Thank you to John Mather for funding this internship. A HUGE gratitude to everyone at AIP/SPS, Brad, Kayla, and Mikayla, for all of your support. And a world of appreciation for my mentors at NIST, Lisa Fronczek and Robert Rudnitsky, along with the rest of the OAM team, including but not limited to: Zack Valdez, Don Ufford, Zara Brunner, Christina Jones, Said Jahanmir, Kelley Rogers, Jessica Strickler, Frank Gayle and Mike Molnar.

Thank you, dear reader, for following me on this journey.

Cheers,