'Old hand' learns something new during summer undergraduate research program
By Amy Mast
The Magnet Lab's Research Experience for Undergraduates, or REU, program attracts many students who've never worked in a lab before. That wasn't the case for Stephanie Law, who was already an old hand thanks to her undergraduate work in Iowa State's Honors program. Law was paired with longtime Magnet Lab user Paul Canfield, with whom she'd also worked at Iowa State.
In the Magnet Lab's REU program, Canfield saw an opportunity for a promising young scientist to expand the scope of her experience.
"Stephanie was a wonderful student, was a natural in the lab and just a generally well-rounded person," said Canfield, a distinguished professor at Iowa State's Department of Physics and Astronomy and a senior scientist at Ames Laboratory. "The Magnet Lab's REU program gave her a chance to see what working in a large, diverse user facility would be like."
We asked Law, now a graduate student at the University of Illinois, how her Magnet Lab experience helped to influence her career goals.
Q. How did you become interested in physics in the first place?
A. I was actually originally interested in astronomy. I always liked looking at the stars and thought it would be fun to study them. While I was in high school, I took an astronomy class at a local college, which was not to my liking. I had always been a very curious person and interested in science, so I decided to study physics in college. As a freshman, I was in the University Honors program, which paired me with a physicist to do some research. I enjoyed the experience and decided to continue pursuing physics.
Q. What about the Mag Lab's REU program
appealed to you?
A. I had always wondered what it would be like working at a national lab, since I had only had experience in a more traditional academic setting. At the Magnet Lab I worked with superfluid helium, which was very different than the research I was doing as an undergrad. The ability to learn and do something completely different was very appealing to me.
Q. You already had some undergraduate research experience. Did that make your time as an REU more or less valuable?
A. I think it made the REU valuable in a different way. Since I already knew some basic lab procedures (soldering, transferring cryogens, etc), I was able to jump in and do some slightly more complex things than I wouldn't have been able to do if I had had to start from scratch. In a sense, the learning curve was not quite so steep so I feel like I was able to accomplish a little more.
Q. How has the work you completed as an REU informed the decisions you've made since?
A. Although I found my REU project interesting, I determined that it was not the type of work I would want to do long-term. It helped me to realize that I really enjoy working with materials physics, which is similar to what I do now.
Q. How is the Magnet Lab different from other research environments you've worked in?
A. Since the Magnet Lab is a national lab, it was somewhat different than the academic environments I have been in since. I felt like at the Magnet Lab, people were more focused on their own work and less interested in other people's work. At Illinois, for example, we are always bringing in speakers to discuss their work and professors are generally well-informed about what their colleagues are doing. At the Magnet Lab, it seemed that people were very focused on their research and on getting useful results right away. There was much more output from the Magnet Lab in terms of papers.
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