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DURHAM, NH -- Marcy Beildeck is trying to figure out how much energy it takes to squeeze sodium ions into a bucky ball. She uses a mass spectrometer to run her tests. She can explain a bit about the origins of these hollow carbon clusters or fullerenes, named for Buckminster Fuller--and she's had to learn a lot of math recently.
Beildeck is participating in a University of New Hampshire program that pairs high school seniors with university professors and graduate students. Twice a week she spends time in a UNH physics lab, working alongside Olof Echt, professor of physics. Then she returns to Pinkerton Academy, where she attends high school.
"We don't redirect our research because of her," says Echt. "We include her so she learns about lasers, electroncis, software, how to build things." In short, Beildeck gets to be part of Echt's research team.
The UNH program has been a great success, according to Cathy Little, a Pinkerton chemistry teacher. Students qualify for this independent research opportunity if they have completed all the science courses offered by the school.
"More and more I'm seeing students considering UNH who, in the past, have been looking only at Dartmouth and other Ivy Leagues," says Little. She attributes this at least in part to the UNH research program. "Students are very impressed with it," she says. "Every student who comes here has loved it. Meanwhile, we're talking it up back at the school. And others hear about it."
For Mark McConnell, UNH associate research professor of physics, the program has been a good match with the some of the grants he's been pursuing. "We're under pressure from NASA to include education and public outreach activities in our research proposals," McConnell explains. "This is not always easy to do." But McConnell has been able to put two Pinkerton students to work analyzing data from the COMPTEL telescope, part of an astronomical gamma ray observatory that has been in orbit since 1991.
"It's a good environment to see what college work is like," says Pinkerton senior Joe Morin, who is enthusiastic about the physics of gamma rays. "And it's giving me the experience to make good decisions." Morin is helping to create a catalogue of gamma ray burst events. Another Pinkerton student, Aron Michalski, is assembling a catalogue of gamma ray images using data from COMPTEL.
Their work is something others on UNH's COMPTEL team simply have not had time to pursue. "But it will be extremely useful to establish systematic catlogues of the COMPTEL data that can be more readily used by researchers, " says McConnell.
As for Echt, he takes the long view of the value of this program, and he is committed to the students. "I do this not for the sake of the research," he says, "but for the sake of education. Plus it's fun. And ultimately, it may help student recruitment at UNH."
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