Summer High School STEM Internships

The School of Science and Technology (SST) at SSU in partnership with Sonoma County Office of Education (SCOE) has created a summer research internship program for Sonoma County high school juniors under the mentorship of SST faculty to stimulate interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) among high school students. The most talented and interested students from Sonoma County high schools are selected competitively. In addition to $1000.00 stipend, these students are given opportunities to work on challenging projects, become familiar with excellent state-of-the art research and development facilities, university education environment and interact with the faculty as well as our students. These students then act as our ambassadors to relay the highlights of the School of Science and Technology to their classmates and friends, counselors, teachers, and principals during their senior year.

Twelve high school students were selected to participate in the Summer 2009 STEM internship program. Below is a listing of faculty mentors, student interns, and project overviews. A reception was held on Tuesday, May 5 to congratulate the young researchers and to establish the intial seeds of their research collaboration. Faculty mentors, student interns and their parents, high school science teachers, SCOE representatives and Dean of the School of Science and Technology, Saeid Rahimi, attended. Take a look at photos of the event.

Students showcased their research projects at the 2009 SSU STEM Summer Internship Program Research Symposium on September 1st. This culminating event was well attended and there was a great deal of buzz around the results obtained from these best and brightest young scientists. See the event photos.

For more information and sample application materials from the Summer 2009 program, visit the Sonoma County Office of Education website.

For an overview of the Summer 2008 program, see the SSU News Center report and the Summer 2008 High School STEM Internship program overview.

Summer 2009 High School STEM Internships

Student + High School	Faculty Mentor	Project Title
Tiffany Daud Petaluma High School	Dr. Anita Catlin Department of Nursing	How to Determine the Need for End of Life Care: Nurses and Doctors Speak
Faith Deis El Molino High School	Dr. Michael Cohen Department of Biology	Biomass to Biogas
Cagsar Apaydin Petaluma High School Kjellen Belcher Santa Rosa High School	Dr. Kevin McLin GORT Director Dr. Lynn Cominsky Director of the E/PO group	Monitoring Active Galaxies with the GLAST Optical Robotic Telescope
Riley Yaylian Orchard View Charter School	Dr. Sazia Eliza Department of Engineering Science	Intensity Control of a Light Bulb
Eric Lu Rancho Cotate High School	Dr. Mohammad Haider Department of Engineering Science	Sensor Signal Processing and Telemetry
Jared Carr Montgomery High School	Dr. Izabela Kanaana Department of Mathematics and Statistics	Graph Theory and its Real-World Applications
Katie Schmidt Healdsburg High School	Dr. Ali Kujoory Department of Engineering Science	Design and Build A Pedometer
Isabel Love Santa Rosa High School	Dr. Jeremy Qualls Department of Physics and Astronomy	An Investigation of Magnetocaloric Materials Towards Refrigeration
Taylor Lee Petaluma High School	Dr. Suzanne Rivoire Department of Computer Science	Open-Source Software for Modeling Computer Power Consumption
Weston Stauffer Petaluma High School	Dr. Hongtao Shi Department of Physics and Astronomy	Magnetic Semiconductors
Sophia Grubb Rancho Cotate High School	Dr. Meng-Chih Su Department of Chemistry	Investigation of Surface Bound Proteins