This summer, I had the opportunity to work for Dr. Jeff Young in the nanophotonics and nanofabrication laboratory located in AMPEL. The main research focus of the group was to perfect the fabrication of photonic crystals and to study their optical properties. I was in awe of the nanofabrication facilities available at AMPEL and learned to work with various types of machines including the Atomic Force Microscope, Scanning Electron Microscope and Ellipsometer, etc. Everyone in the lab was extremely hardworking and enthusiatic, and never hesitated to take time during their busy schedule to talk to me about their research interests as well as to offer me their expertise. The experience was fun and fulfilling and I gained a lot of hands-on experience as well as knowledge of optics, numerical fitting and chemistry!

I had a great time working in the ARPES lab this summer. Although my original project was the development of a five axis sample manipulator to be used in the ARPES chamber, that wasn't the only thing I was limited to. I had many opportunities to explore and work on whatever I felt was the most interesting -- helping out with the cold testing of the cryostat, figuring out the logic for an interlock system, making a soundproof box for a noisy compressor etc. Dr. Damascelli also encouraged people in the lab to attend the condensed matter lectures in Hennings and the various conferences that were held in the summer, which all helped to give me a broader view of the field. That's the best thing about working in an academic setting! You're always learning about something new. You don't get stuck doing the same thing over and over again. Instead, you're given time to explore what you're interested in. From the job, I didn't just learn about programming or motor control, I also learned about working with ultra high vacuum equipment, using temperature and ion gauge controllers, operating the machinery in the AMPEL machine shop, and most importantly of all, finding and ordering the things that we needed.
The atmosphere in the lab was terrific. Though we worked independently, help was always available whenever we became stuck. We all got along really well and had several BBQs together as a group. One of the grad students even took all the summer students on a six day kayaking trip around the Gulf Islands! So if you're looking for a job that offers challenges, variety, and fun, come by and check out the lab!

Sudbury Neutrino observatory is a large tank of heavy water located in a mine shaft 2km below the surface of the earth in Northern Ontario. Although the detector mainly looks for neutrinos the project I worked on was helping a grad student help create a fitter for muons traveling through the detector. A fitter with a high angular resolution is desired so that one can distinguish between atmospheric muons and muons created from a solar neutrino reaction inside of the earth. A solar neutrino interacting within the earth to create a muon implies that neutrinos could oscillate.
Various mathematical methods were used in attempts to create a fitter. I was given the task of coding and testing different program elements to see if they would prove useful in the final fitter.
I am thrilled to have worked with Scott Oser and the rest of the UBC SNO team. It was a great learning experience, familiarizing myself with Unix systems and programming as well as some of the software used to analyze SNO data. It was a challenging and rewarding experience applying my knowledge to a modern experiment.

My summer position consisted of doing data analysis for a survey that was done in November of 2001 at the VLA (Very Large Array) in New Mexico at a frequency of 43 GHz. Surveys at lower frequencies were previously done to determine how much of an error there was in the readings of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, but none had ever been done at a frequency of 43 GHz. It was expected that at this high frequency, there should be somewhere around 10 sources within a 2 degree by 2 degree patch of sky and these sources would be so weak that they would be barely detectable above noise of the sky. Indeed we found that the sources are extremely weak and not very plentiful, but we are still continuing to search for sources through various methods and hope to be able to publish the results by December or so.
Knowing nothing about astronomy and very little about methods of data analysis before starting my position, I was fascinated at how raw data, which looks like nothing that you set out to measure, gets processed into the images and values that you were originally looking for. This position was a huge learning experience for me in that I learned quite a large amount about radio astronomy and I also learned that nothing in an experiment is ever ideal; there is always something that can go wrong with the equipment during observation and when you are processing the data, you just have to do the best with what you have. A large portion of my work was trial and error and, often times, quite frustrating, but this was exactly what helped me truly understand what was going on.
This whole experience has just been excellent and I am extremely greatful that I was given this opportunity to do some relevant, cutting edge research. Now when I hear somebody mention the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, I can feel that I made a small but essential contribution, and, just being at the start of my scientific career, that is very important to me.

SNO (Sudbury Neutrino Observatory) is a particle physics lab located 2 KM under the ground in northern Ontario. The lab and revolutionary physics being done there are quite exciting to be a part of. My work is split up in a few different directions. One of my projects is writing a Web-Based analysis tool for the data output from SNO. I've actually really enjoyed this as I am given a lot of freedom and independence, although support is always there if I need it. I have learned to program in 4 different languages and tons about the experiment itself for this project. Since the detector runs 24/7 someone always has to be watching the data as it comes in and monitoring the electronics and computing systems. Therefore about 1/3 of my time is devoted to "detector operator shifts". Being in control of such a complex and state-of-the-art detector is quite an experince. On top of that I also get to help out with electronics repair, as SNO has such an intricate electronics system, something always seems to be needing repair. Overall I have really enjoyed my nserc, I feel that I have learned much more than I would have in a term at school. I will continue working there until december making it an 8 month work term.

This was my first experience working in a lab and I think that I couldn't have asked for a better place to start off. First of all, the lab itself is just starting off so I had an excellent opportunity to see some of what it takes to get a lab up and running. There were a billion things to order (a never ending task), a bunch of stuff left behind from the previous professor to organize, and equipment to build so that one day an actual Bose-Einstein Condensate can be made and studied in this lab. I was given the responsibility of building temperature controllers and current drivers for the lasers that will be used here. The actual circuits were given to me but I had to etch circuits, drill holes in them for the components to go in, buy the components, solder the components in, buy or make boxes for them to go in and test that they really do work. There was plenty of hands on work, but I learnt a lot of electronics and physics in the process. I also had a chance to work with a few diode lasers and to collect some data about their performance. What really made all my work experience so enjoyable though was the fact that everyone I worked with was very willing to help and to discuss things with me. The fact that we had, on average, 3 hour group meetings every week can attest to that! I guess I should warn you that the undergraduates here put in 10-13 hour days because there was just so much to do, but I like the thought of having made a real contribution to a lab as an undergraduate. In short, this is a great place to work for those that want to be given responsibility and work with very dedicated and supportive people.

I worked as a summer research student in the MBE Lab at UBC. Under Prof. Tiedje's supervision, I worked on a recently-proposed model for GaAs surface evolution under molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) deposition [J. of Cryst. Growth. 271 pp.13-21]. The model is a pair of coupled non-linear partial differential equations, and I devised an asymptotic analysis method to identifiy the low-order non-linear behavior. Analytical and numerical work yielded a set of linear and nonlinear terms that capture the different distinctive physical characteristics of surface evolution observed during MBE experiments. I then carried out addatom simulation to confirm one part of the model. Atom-by-atom simulation was required because the model uses continuum functions to encapsulate the effect of atomic diffusion. A kinetic monte-carlo simulation was implemented to perform addatom simulation of GaAs growth. The results were analyzed, and I found a functional describing the atomic step density's dependence on temperature, growth rate, and macroscopic surface slope. This function agrees with the growth model as well as experimental results. On a different subject, Prof. Tiedje used the aforementioned asymptotic analysis to derive a nonlinear PDE that describes snow ablation. I then investigated the PDE numerically and found that the model predicts snow cone formation. I had a wonderful time working in the MBE lab during the summer. Prof. Tiedje and his student, Anders, were enthusiastic about the research and were willing to advice on my work. I enjoyed my projects a lot and I have learnt a lot about numerical and functional analysis during the work term. Also, publication of these results is expected. Here is the first article.

First off, the lab is pretty cool to work in, and the grad students are very nice and helpful. Dr. Halpern is great at taking time to explain what's going on and what you have to do and then stepping back and letting you figure stuff out for yourself, but you can always ask questions. He was supportive of my going to departmental talks and softball games. I worked mainly on taking apart and then designing and rebuilding parts for a dewar, and then putting it back together. I got to work in the machine shop a lot, and got to handle liquid nitrogen and helium. The dewar cools a detector that is in a fourier spectrometer and it will be used to characterize some filters for the ACT telescope in Chile.

Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Analyst at the UBC High Field MRI Research Centre. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) uses much of the same concepts as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), including the same technology, but instead of producing images it produces a spectrum of the metabolites in the voxel (box of interest) scanned. Most of the studies performed at the UBC MRI centre are related to neurology, so the voxels are positioned within the brain. MRS is a noninvasive technique that has no known side effects, so it is safe for use on the brain. My role in the research group is to analyze the spectroscopy measurements and help to improve the methods of collecting spectra. After a patient has been scanned, I load the data into an analysis program called LCModel. This program produces a fit to the spectrum and calculates relative or absolute concentrations of the metabolites in that voxel. This information is extremely valuable in determining the physiological conditions of the normal and diseased brain. To determine how to improve the methods of measurement I have helped in the scanning of phantoms (bottles of brain metabolites). Scanning phantoms allows us to compare the effects of different scan parameters on constant concentrations of metabolites. We often test parameters on people as well, so I have volunteered to be scanned many times. After being scanned they give you a disk with pictures of your brain, so I have proof mine is there! Since the field of MRI is so multidisciplinary I have collaborated with physicists, psychologists, radiologists, neurologists, engineers and technicians. Everyone brings their own unique perspective to a problem to find innovative solutions. Working with the MRI research group has been a wonderful experience mainly because of the people in this group. They are the friendliest, most helpful and caring people you could ever meet. Beginning my research career in this group has been rewarding and so much fun I don't want to leave. Maybe I won't.

MOST, standing for Microvariability and Oscillations of Stars, is a tiny satellite that continuously observes a single variable star for weeks at a time. One of its three groundstations is located on the 3rd floor of Hennings, where I spent my summer vacation. I gained alot of experience here, especially since this was my first research position. My summer began by intensely familiarizing myself with the project and the theory behind the science. The other students and faculty in the lab made sure I knew a little about all aspects of the project. From ground station operations to learning how to computer program, I learned way more than I'd ever be able to remember. Once I was familiar with the ground station operations, I began more specific tasks. Using IDL, I created a program that read in telemetry files received from the telescope to check if the clocks on the satellite ran simultaneous to clocks on earth. Later on, using a program called Wavelets, created by Andrew Walker in the MOST lab, I began doing wavelet analysis, in search of variability, on two stars MOST observed a couple months ago. I created a widgets based program called WAVELET ANALYSIS in IDL to analyze the data produced by the wavelet transform program. In addition to analyzing the two target stars, I spent several weeks running simulated data sets through the wavelet transform program.
Overall, I gained so much experience this summer. The position helped to clarify my future path in astronomy. I would recommend the MOST lab to any student interested in asteroseismology.

It was great having the experience of working in a Physics environment in TRIUMF, where theories are really put into practice. I worked under Jess Brewer this summer, and it has been a fun, exciting, and mind-boggling learning experience. In the old days (oh, I mean just before the summer), it was only in Physics textbooks where I've seen and heard that matter can reach a percent of the speed of light. Here we have protons travelling at 75%! I've had a tour once of the place, but one cannot really get a feel for the place unless you've worked here. Even now, I can't say I know enough about TRIUMF yet!
Jess let me choose which field I would like to work on, for anything that I find interesting. I had the experience to "babysit" the data acquisition computers to make sure that nothing goes wrong--although it's pretty much Internet surfing in those times. I worked in the software field (using Java and C++) and developed useful programs for MuSR (Muon Spin Resonance/Relaxation/...) experiments such as Fast Fourier Transform and helped build Graphical User Interfaces for fitting programs (we all don't like those command line interfaces, right?). 3 years ago, I learned the C Programming Language (and learned nothing else since then!), and put whatever is in my knowledge to use. Of course, for the most part, I kept on checking the internet for much needed information about C++ and Java, as I basically needed to learn from scratch. I also worked on making a User's manual for a program that reads data files.
All in all, the experience was a great one, although I would have to put up with my lack of knowledge that makes me feel like a helpless wreck at times (typical programming expereince, eh?). I've learned so much this summer, and these things I've learned about are all of my own choosing. But the best part is that whenever I hear TRIUMF mentioned in conversations, I can secretly say to myself, "I've worked there!"