LHC never ceases to amaze

I found out about the summer student program through the NSF REU website originally during my freshman year in college. I remembered reading that I couldn’t apply until I was at least a junior, but I knew I would probably try the summer before my senior year.

I am working on the ISOLDE experiment. My project is helping to improve the beam-line at the ISOLDE facility by running simulations that aim at determining the optimal settings for the different magnets along the beam. This will help ensure the maximum number of particles that enter the beam will make it to their target at the end. In addition to myself there is one other student working on the project. While he is working on the actual ion-optic simulations, I am extracting information about some of the individual components on our portion of the beam-line using other simulation software, which will ultimately help improve the accuracy of the general simulations that we run.

My time here at CERN has completely amazed me, and has gone far beyond what I was expecting. First of all, when I applied I actually didn’t know about the Summer Student Lecture Program, nor the workshops that we would be encouraged to participate in. I am learning so much from these and they are invaluable to my understanding of the experiments and physics that go on here at CERN. And the opportunity to be able to collaborate with so many people from all around the world is truly a unique experience and one which I’m glad to be a part of.

As I was not familiar with my project before arriving at CERN I did have to study a little before coming. Then once I arrived here I spent a good portion of my first two weeks reading many articles, papers, and manuals that helped me to really understand the fundamental physics behind my project, and the code that I would need to know in order to do the work.

I will always remember my time here at CERN. The opportunity to simply participate in the largest experiment in the world has been a great blessing to me, and I feel very fortunate to have had this opportunity. Getting to see what it is like to conduct research with cutting edge technology and in an international collaboration has been very valuable to me. And of course, being able to travel around Europe to so many different places has been very fun and has opened my eyes up to many new places.

Like probably everyone, the LHC never ceases to amaze me. But I think one of the things that impressed me the most is how so many people, all from different backgrounds and different countries, all speaking different languages, and all of whom are experts in different fields, can come together in a place like this and all collaborate on one very large experiment.