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Photo: Ben Tolo

The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego, has announced this year’s volunteer internship program for high school students, who will be paired with SDSC researchers during the summer to help them gain experience in particular areas of computational research.

The seven-week program, called Research Experience for High School Students (REHS), will be held June 24- August 9, 2013 at SDSC. Internship hours, which typically range from 15 to 25 hours a week, will be coordinated with the SDSC mentors participating in the program.

REHS, now in its fourth year, is seen as a stepping stone for students who would like to pursue a computational science curriculum as they enter college. The summer program has grown substantially since its first year, with the number of student applications doubling in 2012 from 2011, according to Ange Mason, Education Program Manager at SDSC.

“This tells us that students really appreciate the opportunity to be part of a fun, hands-on internship program at SDSC while gaining in-depth learning and working experience in a computational research area of their choice,” said Mason, who helped coordinate internships for about 40 students during last year’s program.

Noa Glaser, who attends a San Diego-area high school, participated in last year’s REHS program, she completed an internship that led to a second one with the UCSD Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in computational biology and immunology, where she still meets with scientists on a weekly basis for guidance and mentoring.

“From seven in the morning until 3 p.m., I’m a high school junior,” said Glaser. “Starting at 4 p.m., I’m a computational biology research intern at the San Diego Supercomputer Center in collaboration with the UCSD School of Pharmacy. Though I did not know it at the time, REHS became a turning point in my life and the source of many great opportunities, and I hope that my research will help immunologists in the development of life-saving vaccines and adjuvants.”

The numerous REHS intern opportunities being offered this year include:

• Creating new ways to present customers with SDSC’s Information Technology Services, including cloud-based data storage.
• Developing a web-based resource to boost UC-wide biomedical collaborations.
• Interning as a research assistant for SDSC’s Predictive Analytics Center of Excellence (PACE) initiative.
• Interning as an SDSC Networking Assistant, helping to maintain SDSC’s local, wide, wired, and wireless area computer networks.
• Assisting middle and high school students enrolled in SDSC’s Summer Computing and Science Academy.
• Assisting with the planning of the XSEDE’13 Student Program, a national high-performance computing (HPC) conference.
• Assisting with UC San Diego’s Renewable Energy/Microgrid System Analysis Project.
• Learning how to build a Linux cluster with Raspberry Pi computers and adapting tiled display software for the Raspberry Pi.
• Interning as a prototypical user of the StudentTECH Community Portal, including administration, maintenance, design, development, and upgrading.

Students applying for the REHS program must be 16 years of age on or before June 24, 2013, per UC San Diego’s volunteer and employee requirements. Students may apply for up to two opportunities. All applications must be submitted via U.S. mail no later than March 15, 2013. Selected applicants will be contacted by SDSC personnel to arrange a personal interview no later than April 15, 2013.

For detailed internship opportunity descriptions and to download an application, please click here. For questions about the application process, please contact Ange Mason via phone at (858) 534-5064 or email at amason@ucsd.edu.

About SDSC
As an Organized Research Unit of UC San Diego, SDSC is considered a leader in data-intensive computing and cyberinfrastructure, providing resources, services, and expertise to the national research community, including industry and academia. Cyberinfrastructure refers to an accessible, integrated network of computer-based resources and expertise, focused on accelerating scientific inquiry and discovery. SDSC supports hundreds of multidisciplinary programs spanning a wide variety of domains, from earth sciences and biology to astrophysics, bioinformatics, and health IT. With its two newest supercomputer systems, Trestles and Gordon, SDSC is a partner in XSEDE (Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment), the most advanced collection of integrated digital resources and services in the world.

For Comment:
Ange Mason, SDSC Education and Outreach
858 534-5064 or amason@ucsd.edu

Media Contacts:
Jan Zverina, SDSC Communications
858 534-5111 or jzverina@sdsc.edu

Warren R. Froelich, SDSC Communications
858 822-3622 or froelich@sdsc.edu