Quick Shot

Now in its 30th year, LLE’s Summer High School Research Program continues to maintain its goal of exciting high school students about careers in the areas of science and technology by exposing them to research in a state-of-the-art environment. The program, directed by Dr. Stephen Craxton for the past 21 years, has an impressive record of 377 students, many of whom have gone on to receive post-graduate training in a variety of fields from physics to medicine. Shown are four recent students with their projects. In the upper left is Steven Booth (Brighton High School), advised by Wade Bittle and Vinitha Anand, with a power-conditioning-unit circuit board of the type used on OMEGA and OMEGA EP. In the upper right is Katie Kopp (Victor High School), advised by Stavros Demos, displaying frog kidney structures using the MUSE (microscopy with ultraviolet surface excitation) technique developed originally to assess damage to laser optics. In the lower left and advised by Walter Shmayda and Cody Fagan is Maia Raynor (Brighton High School) with a setup that investigates hydrogen oxidation over a copper alloy. In the lower right is Hannah Lang (Rush Henrietta High School), advised by Ken Marshall, shown in front of a computationally generated molecular model of an azobenzene photoswitchable alignment material being investigated for use in an optically addressable liquid crystal beam shaper.