Three exceptional graduating high school students have been chosen to receive the 2012 TRIUMF High School Fellowship. Beginning in July, Kevin Multani, Lily Zhang, and Wyatt Gronnemose will spend six weeks at TRIUMF doing research under the guidance of TRIUMF Research Scientists. Multani will be working with Dr. Thomas Planche on a project to build a small-scale demonstration cyclotron, Gronnemose will be working with Dr. Stan Yen on neutrino detectors, and Zhang will be working with Dr. Alice Miceli on liquid Xenon detectors for PET medical imaging. Besides affording students the experience of working at TRIUMF, the Fellowship program offers the students a $3000 award at the end of their six-week stay at TRIUMF.
About 60 students from all across B.C. applied to the TRIUMF Fellowship. An external judging panel was given the very difficult task of selecting a short list of nine names, from which a TRIUMF committee selected three. This year, for the first time, TRIUMF welcomed a judge from Science World on the latter committee. “TRIUMF is working with Science World on enhancing and expanding the high school fellowship program,” said TRIUMF’s Outreach Coordinator, Dr. Marcello Pavan, “and we wanted them to get a first-hand look at the most ridiculously talented high-school science students in the province.”
On the value of the six weeks of experience at TRIUMF, Marcello said that the main goal is to “show them what a physics research career is really like and to help inform them about their future decisions. After six weeks, they’ll have a much better idea of what it’s like and they can decide for themselves whether it’s for them or not.”
For students considering applying for the TRIUMF Fellowship Program, Marcello indicated that a mix of excellent grades and extracurricular activities makes an effective candidate. “You want to identify the kids who have a passion for science an demonstrate it. [Extracurricular activities] demonstrate that you have a passion for science and that an experience at TRIUMF could really help you; tip you over the edge to possibly going on to a career in research.”
-- By Jordan Pitcher, Communications Assistant