REU 2011 Blog: Alesha Shorts
The Magnet Lab's Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program draws students from all over the country to spend eight weeks learning from the leading researchers in their chosen field. This blog chronicles two undergraduates interested in science careers – one from a large university and another from a small college – as they learn their way around the lab and expand their research horizons.
By Kathleen Laufenberg
Meet tomorrow's scientists: Alesha Shorts
Week 8
On Tuesday of her last week, Alesha had a few tweaks to make to her poster (Molecular Characterization of the Water-Soluble Species Extracted from the Deepwater Horizon Crude by Negative-Ion Electrospray Ionization FT-ICR Mass Spectrometry), due Wednesday at noon.
"I have three small things I have to fix, and then send it to Dr. (Alan) Marshall, and then I'll fix whatever he suggests, and then I'm done.
"I definitely had an amazing time. I've learned so many things about science in this field that I didn't even know existed. It makes sense, but I didn't realize you could do this kind of thing with the instruments they're using. If I ever hear about another (oil spill), I would definitely think about it in a different way, about how I was able to characterize the water-soluble components and … the effect on the environment.
"Leaving is very bittersweet. It will be sad. … I do feel like I've had a really amazing experience. I wouldn't trade it for anything."
Week 7
Alesha talks about hearing from a professor at Gardner-Webb University, where she will be a senior this fall, wrapping up her work at the lab, and her future plans.
"One of our professors e-mailed Jackie and I, and he said he was in the barbershop reading the "Shelby Star" (newspaper) and he saw the story about us … that was really cool.
"I thought that I was done with everything last week, and then I discovered that I had to process four more spectra, so I was officially done as of yesterday with my project! So now I am just getting things together, putting my poster together, getting ready to present.
"I have talked a lot to (mentor-scientist) Jackie (Jarvis) about going to grad school. A lot of the things she said made sense to me. I think the best thing for me is to just go straight to graduate school."
Week 6
Alesha talks about her technical work collecting petroleum data and her emotional life as her internship winds to a close.
"I was running my samples this week … we ran some blanks, and we ran just the plain crude (oil), so we had stuff to compare my samples to. Other than that, I've been doing data processing.
"You use the program that NHMFL created. … You have to go through and make sure all the peak assignments are correct and reassign any that didn't get assigned correctly. …
"There's also a big section of things that are called 'no hits,' and they're just things that never got assigned in the first place. So we take those and put them in another worksheet and compare the mass on this, like, formula-calculator, and it will bring up a list of all the things that it could be with that mass. Then we have to decide which compound it's most likely to be.
"I guess technically I have not reassigned anything, but I have assigned no hits. …You have to sit down and decide which compound it is, and it's hard. … You have to have a good idea of what should be in your sample.
"I think I'll be able to finish data processing and get all my figures made before the end of this week, and so that will give me a whole week to work on my poster.
"It's has been a very tough time since I've been here. … I've had emotional highs and emotional lows, but I think that's just because of everything going on with my family moving and just not being there. Knowing that when I go home they won't be there. I've been trying not to focus on it, but sometimes I just can't help it. I don't have any roommates, so when I go home for the evening, it's kinda hard to not to think about that kind of thing. While I'm here I can focus on work, but once I get home, I have to distract myself.
"Sometimes in the evening, I go over to her (MagLab mentor Jackie Jarvis') house. We've made spaghetti and watched movies, and I play with her dog Toby, and he's adorable. He's a pitbull-something mix. He has the most relaxed personality I have ever seen in a dog.
"She has been (a lifesaver), definitely. … I've told her when I go back (to North Carolina, where they're both from), I'm going to go see her parents and, like, introduce myself."
Click here to read an article about Alesha and her mentor Jackie Jarvis in the Shelby Star
Week 4
This week, you can watch Alesha work in this 1½ minute video. She's in the Ion Cyclotron Resonance lab, where samples of petroleum and biofuels are analyzed. Alesha's samples are petroleum dissolved in seawater from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf.
Week 3
"This week, we had a consultant (a retired Exxon Mobile scientist) and so we had a lot of meetings all week. He's an expert in separations, which means that if you have a big mixture of different compounds, he's an expert in identifying what kind of extractant you would need to separate a certain part of your sample.
He knows a lot about what you should see in the (Ion Cyclotron Resonance) instrument, what kind of results you should have if the separation occurred correctly. The grad students, even the postdocs, everybody did presentations of their research and showed their results, like how the instrument is behaving with different things. He was pulling papers to give to everybody to help with their problems.
I got my assignment this week, too, for what I will have on my (final project) poster: I'm going to be running a liquid-liquid extraction on the Deepwater Horizon crude oil. And basically that separates out organic acids, that's one group, and neutrals and bases. And then I will take those two samples and do the data processing using the 9.4 tesla ICR magnet.
I will have to do the sample prep, and she (mentor scientist Jackie Jarvis) might let me load the spray rig. But other than that – like turning all the instrument stuff on, she will have to be with me.
I've actually started my assignment already. You have to mix a sample of crude oil in seawater. Yesterday, we went and checked it, but it had formed an emulsion, so we had to add more seawater to it. So now it is going to mix for another two days. So basically, so far, all I've done is just mix the oil and water."
Week 2
In her second week, Alesha — who also turned 21 this week! — had several Big Moments as she learned to how to examine oil samples taken from the BP spill in the Gulf.
"I learned a couple of different things. I learned how to turn on the (Ion Cyclotron Resonance machine). It's like 20 different steps, and it's kind of a big deal to turn it on and off. There's a lot more to it than I thought. If you miss a step, it could be detrimental to the instrument. They have a notebook, with the steps you follow, and a logbook that you fill out to say when you used it and how it functioned and if you had to do any maintenance on it.
I learned how to do a sample prep, too; I'd read how to do it, but I hadn't ever actually worked with doing it. The sample loads into a syringe, and you inject it into the ICR instrument. … You check the (computer-screen) readout to see if it loaded right. I guess it surprised me to see how the instrument was acting; I guess I thought it would be more perfect. The spray wasn't working very well. I think that was our biggest problem. It kept clogging a lot.
And we did data processing, which is the hardest part. You have to tell (the computer program) which compounds to calibrate. … You have to calibrate (some data findings) to sort-of smooth it out. The calibrating part I've gotten better at. The easy ones, I can do.
And I went to a meeting Wednesday evening at (ICR program director) Dr. (Alan) Marshall's house; there were, like, 20 people there and a girl wh4o wants to do her post-doc here gave her proposal. It did kind of surprise me — you have it in a very informal setting. I can only hope if I'm presenting (to do post-doc work) that it could be in a setting like that. People were asking tough questions, but the atmosphere was relaxing."
Alesha Shorts
Alesha Shorts, 20, will be a senior this fall at Gardner-Webb University — a small, private, Christian university — in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. She's studying environmental chemistry.
If she wasn't interning at the MagLab — and experiencing her first time living in a large dorm on the Florida State University campus — she'd be helping her mom, dad and older brother (she's the youngest of two) move to Colorado. Her mother was promoted to campus controller for Johnson & Wales University — but at its Denver campus, not its Charlotte, N.C. where she's long been employed.
"It's going to be rough when I go back," Alesha said of her senior year in tiny Boiling Springs (population: 4,301).
Her father tests water systems to make sure the water meets certain standards.
"I always thought I would follow in my mom's footsteps, but it's my brother who is in accounting just like my mom. Recently I've realized that I actually have a lot more in common with my dad because he's doing stuff with well-water systems … adding the different chemicals that they need."
Although chemistry is now at the center of her life, she didn't even like it in high-school.
"I think it was the teacher I had. He really talked over my head, and I just didn't do well. But in college, the professor was great and explained everything. I really enjoyed the class."
As a result, she enrolled in another chemistry class, then another and another. She also learned to make jewelry as a way to unwind. Her first week at the lab, she wore a pair of pretty, green-beaded earrings she'd recently created.
It's no coincidence that her mentor is graduate assistant Jackie Jarvis, a scientist working in the lab's Ion Cyclotron Resonance program. Jarvis is also from North Carolina and went to the same small university. She asked professors at Gardner-Webb to share information about the MagLab's REU program, in hopes of exposing some young scientists to the incredible research opportunities at the MagLab.
Using oil samples taken from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Jarvis will show Alesha how data on petroleum is collected and analyzed at the lab. That will allow Alesha to learn about the lab's sophisticated array of ICR magnets and computer systems.
For more information about the MagLab's REU program contact Jose Sanchez at sanchez@magnet.fsu.edu or (850) 645-0033.
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