This summer, Berkeley Lab hosted four interns as part of the Arizona State University-Berkeley Lab STEM Pathways program, which was conceived in 2021 to increase the number of Native American students in STEM graduate programs. The hope is that many will go on to become professional scientists and engineers.
Now in its second year, the program has so far supported seven students to serve as summer interns at Berkeley Lab, “giving them the chance to experience real science research and hopefully decide they want to pursue science as a career,” said program co-lead Trent Northen.
One of this year’s ASU interns, Kaela Henry, participated in a project at the Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts Process Development Unit (ABPDU) working on biological carbon dioxide conversion to aviation fuel under the guidance of mentors Eric Sundstrom and Young Eun Song.