Meet four of the 2024 Computing Science Area Summer Program students and hear about the benefits of the program from Associate Lab Director Jonathan Carter and Sartaj Baveja, a former ESnet intern turned staff mentor, in this new video.
Every year, several dozen undergraduate, graduate, and high school students engage in hands-on technical and scientific research through the Computing Sciences Area (CSA) Summer Program at Berkeley Lab. Begun more than a decade ago, this paid summer program pairs interns with mentors from one or more of the Area’s four divisions: Applied Mathematics & Computational Research (AMCR), Scientific Data (SciData), Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC).
Such internships play a vital role in increasing the number of college graduates interested in pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and math related fields. Interns gain valuable experiences in more than just one specialized research topic: they are also encouraged to network and check out many different focus areas through workshops, tours, social events, and talks that span the depth and breadth of the Computing Sciences Area.
Lauren Illa, who had just graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor’s in Materials Science & Engineering, was among the 164 participants in the 2024 summer program. “I wanted to learn how to build and profile the performance of materials modeling software on supercomputing resources,” said Illa, who was hired directly as a student assistant for her project by NERSC’s Application Performance Group.
Working with her mentor, Application Performance Engineer Neil Mehta, Illa first profiled the performance of a suite of electronic structure and materials modeling codes called Quantum ESPRESSO. She then created a proxy application based on Quantum ESPRESSO that could emulate its performance with less complexity. Throughout the internship, she learned about high-performance computing architecture and coding, including how to write proxy application software by abstracting complex production codes into their most basic computations for modeling purposes. Illa is excited to integrate her knowledge of high-performance computing and computational materials science with spectroscopy and nanofabrication techniques in her future graduate studies.
The Area’s summer students and student-faculty teams are funded by several different sources through Berkeley Lab’s Workforce Development and Education internship program, including the Department of Energy’s Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) and Community College Internship (CCI) programs and Sustainable Horizon’s faculty-student program, Sustainable Research Pathways, as well as the Experiences in Research (EinR) six-week program for high school students, offered by Berkeley Lab’s K-12 STEM Education and Outreach division. And many are hired directly by a division for the summer, as Illa was.
“Research isn’t a single person or effort. It relies on a diversity of opinions,” says Associate Lab Director Jonathan Carter in a new video. “Having new people join us every summer with their thoughts about certain problems enables us to take a new look at things.”
Learn more about the Computing Sciences Area Summer Program and submit a resume for the 2025 direct-hire positions
About Computing Sciences at Berkeley Lab
High performance computing plays a critical role in scientific discovery. Researchers increasingly rely on advances in computer science, mathematics, computational science, data science, and large-scale computing and networking to increase our understanding of ourselves, our planet, and our universe. Berkeley Lab's Computing Sciences Area researches, develops, and deploys new foundations, tools, and technologies to meet these needs and to advance research across a broad range of scientific disciplines.
