News
Moncrief Summer Internship Program 2020
Published July 3, 2020
The Moncrief Summer Internship program at Oden Institute began in Summer 2009 with just two students. Over the past decade the program has grown to support between 10-12 students each summer with the participation of over 30 faculty.
Stephanie Rodriguez, graduate coordinator at the Oden Institute, outlines what has made it so successful and how they have coordinated the program online with 11 new student interns this summer:
“Students are matched to a faculty supervisor and may work with research staff, postdocs, and graduate students as part of a vertical instruction team. Each student conducts research activities focused on developing modeling and simulation methods to study problems in areas such as energy, advanced materials, biomedical research, nanomanufacturing and related areas. At the conclusion of the program, each student must submit a report and present a poster summarizing their research project.
“This year, we had just concluded our application process when the covid-19 pandemic began to affect university operations. When it became clear that having a traditional on-site internship would not be possible we began working to transition the program to a remote format. With support from supervising faculty members and the University of Texas at Austin’s Summer Research Scholars program, we are pleased to report that all 11 of our selected students were able to participate in the new format. All events and workshops are conducted via video conference applications and we have partnered with the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) to give our students access to training and networking opportunities with interns from the TACC REU program.
“We have been impressed with the resiliency and initiative of these students and expect to be impressed by the work they produce.”
The Oden Institute is pleased to welcome the following students to our 2020 Moncrief Summer Internship Program:
• Akksay Singh is a senior at UT Austin majoring in Chemistry & Computational Engineering. He is supervised by Graeme Henkelman, member of the Center for Computational Molecular Sciences.
• Nicolas Aufiero is a junior at UT Austin, majoring in Computational Engineering & the Plan II Honors Program. He is supervised by Michael Sacks, director of the Willerson Center for Cardiovascular Modeling & Simulation.
• Tharit Tangkijwanichakul is a senior at UT Austin majoring in Geophysics. He is supervised by Sergey Fomel, professor of Geological Sciences and the Bureau of Economic Geology.
• Katharine Fisher is a senior at UT Austin majoring in Computational Engineering. She is supervised by Karen Willcox, director of the Oden Institute and leader of the Willcox Research Group.
• Marcos Botto Tornielli is a senior at UT Austin majoring in Computational Engineering. He is supervised by Clint Dawson, director of the Computational Hydraulics Group.
• Zhaokun Xue is a senior at UT Austin majoring in Computer Science & Mathematics. He is supervised by George Biros, director of the Parallel Algorithms for Data Analysis and Simulation Group.
• Camille Renaud is a senior at Marist College majoring in Applied Mathematics. She is supervised by Tan Bui-Thanh, director of the Probabilistic and High Order Inference, Computation, Estimation, and Simulation (PHO-ICES) Group.
• Jackelyne Garcia Cruz is a senior at Stony Brook University majoring in Biology. She is supervised by Ron Elber, director of the Center for Computational Life Sciences and Biology.
• Sophia Smith is a senior at the University of Chicago majoring in Physics & Mathematics. She is supervised by Ufuk Topcu, director of the Autonomous Systems Group.
• Yunhao Yang is a senior at UT Austin majoring in Computer Science & Mathematics. He is supervised by Chandrajit Bajaj, director of the Computational Visualization Center.
Absent from Group Picture:
• Ishaani Khatri is a senior at Brown University majoring in Computational Biology. She is supervised by Song (Stephen) Yi, Assistant Professor of Oncology and Director of the Bioinformatics, Developmental Therapeutics Lab at Dell Medical School.