Friday, June 7, 2024
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What a wonderful week! I’m having the most amazing time here. Our intern cohort finally worked out our taxes, which was a lot of fun because everyone was on a zoom call together. On Monday, I met up with one of my roommates from college, and we went to the Buffalo Wild Wings unlimited wings and fries special. I think I’ve had enough for a lifetime and don’t really want to think about it any more than that.
On Wednesday, I headed into the DC office with Charles, Charlotte, and Jenna. We met up with the rest of the interns as they arrived. There is so much wonderful food available from events being held there! Unfortunately, I have realized I tend to distract people while we work if I’m not careful. I made a real effort that day to separate out my break time and work time.
This week my first FYI article has been published! It covers the push by the Department of Energy to develop noncommercial, nondefense AI. This is something that I found uniquely exciting, since lots of my condensed matter research back in college was super computational and relied on some ML models. Journalism writing is so different from the academic work I’m used to, so I’m so incredibly grateful that my mentors, Jacob Taylor and Mitch Ambrose, have put so much time into explaining and reviewing things with me. I feel so grateful that I have been placed with such a supportive and generous team.
The Trimble Lecture was on Wednesday as well, so we all dressed up and attended the reception, followed by a brilliant talk about everything that goes into building space telescopes. It reminded me of the LIGO project, which I learned lots about from a brilliant physics professor at Trinity University in Texas. They announced that the next Trimble Lecture will be delivered by Dr. Lawrence Principe, which is super exciting to me because I love history of science, and he is one of the giants in that field.
I’m going to be away from DC next week. I’m sad to miss the dinner cruise but am so happy that everyone had a wonderful time. This Thursday I flew to France, where I will see some friends from college. We’re going to visit some beautiful churches and visit the beach. Luckily, I will catch up on my work by doing extra time remotely after the program has ended. I’m so grateful to be able to have that extra time to keep learning from the FYI team!
Last week, I tried pretty hard to plan so that I wouldn’t have food left in the fridge while I’m gone. Unfortunately, I ended up with a bag of onions and a sweet potato, so I threw those in the freezer. I really hope I can defrost them when I’m back!
Johnny Miri