Students

When Jackie Stewart accepted her dream job with the Frederick National Laboratory’s Laboratory Animal Sciences Program last year, it wasn’t the first time she had set foot on the sprawling campus owned by NCI at Frederick, the national lab’s government sponsor and partner. Stewart had spent the 2007–2008 school year and every summer and winter from 2008–2011 as a student intern at the Frederick National Laboratory and NCI at Frederick.

In the Building 549 auditorium, 20 student interns recently gathered to participate in the Scientific Library’s 13th annual Student Science Jeopardy Tournament, with an audience of other interns, mentors, and NCI at Frederick employees there to cheer them on.

As part of Occupational Health Services’ ongoing workplace wellness program, Poster will highlight employees who are committed to health and wellness. The first edition features the current OHS interns. 

At the annual Spring Research Festival on Fort Detrick, they placed first in the First-in-Development Cell Biology category. At the Frederick County Science and Engineering Fair, they won the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair Award of Excellence in Computer Science and placed second in the Molecular and Cell Biology category. 

Yet despite these accomplishments, Alexis Adkins and Jacqueline Chung said they didn’t consider themselves “real scientists.” Maybe that’s because they lacked a science degree—or, until very recently, even a high school diploma. However, they are indisputably real scientists. 

NCI at Frederick’s newest student interns smiled for a group photo outside the Advanced Technology Research Facility. Forty-eight young faces stared at the camera, looking excited but slightly overwhelmed. Later that same evening, the students took part in the Incoming Ceremony, the official start to what many in the past have considered one of the most meaningful journeys of their lives.

Summer is here, and that means the return of two popular events from the Scientific Library: the Summer Video Series and the Student Science Jeopardy! Tournament.

With the school year nearly over, classes are the last thing that many students want to think about—but not at NCI at Frederick and the Frederick National Laboratory. Here, Werner H. Kirsten (WHK) student interns Emme Tissue and Esteban Garcia aren’t just contemplating class, they’re teaching them. On May 23, now recognized as National Stop the Bleed Day, the two high school seniors led a Stop the Bleed training course for nearly a dozen employees at the Frederick National Laboratory’s Vaccine Pilot Plant.

This week, Werner H. Kirsten student interns Emme Tissue and Esteban Garcia are launching a training course that could mean the difference between life and death. The duo will teach a class on halting uncontrolled bleeding in individuals who have experienced traumatic injuries such as gunshot wounds or major lacerations. The course is part of the official Stop the Bleed Program, an international initiative that seeks to reduce the number of deaths from traumatic bleeding by training civilians to provide on-site care to the injured. All NCI at Frederick and Frederick National Laboratory employees are eligible to enroll—no prior training required.

It’s half an hour to showtime in the spacious, sun-filled atrium. Glance upward and you can’t miss the painted five-foot-tall black paw print and the inscription “Panther Pride” along the open staircase’s tallest yellow wall. Clustered around the lobby, 20 presenters are steeling their nerves as best they can: pacing, fidgeting, rehearsing. Pressure to perform aside, it’s a decidedly casual event, evidenced by several shoelaces that need tying.

When Joshua Yu became a semifinalist in the 2019 Regeneron Science Talent Search, he continued a tradition he didn’t even know existed. A Werner H. Kirsten (WHK) intern, Yu is the latest in a long line of students hailing from Nadya Tarasova, Ph.D.’s lab to make the semifinals in the Regeneron competition, which bills itself as the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors.