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Intern Spotlight: Summer Czarnowski (RESESS)

Tags: internships

This summer we’re introducing interns from Student Career, RESESS, and Geo-Launchpad programs to highlight their research projects and how EarthScope programs further their career goals.

Summer Czarnowski (she/they) is one of EarthScope’s 2024 Summer RESESS Interns working at Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, New Mexico with Elizabeth Silber. Summer is originally from Fargo, North Dakota and is currently attending North Dakota State University. They are working towards a bachelor’s in geology. During their schooling, they spent a year studying abroad in Austria and are considering returning to Europe for a master’s degree. 

Q&A

How did you decide on a degree in geology?

Originally I was doing computer science mostly because I just liked the job security that it offered. But then after my second semester, I realized that it would have just made me miserable, working with all these people who are so into computer science and are very passionate about it when I wasn’t. That semester I needed a general science credit, so I signed up for an introductory geology course randomly and ended up really enjoying it. I hadn’t realized before that this was something that I could study. I loved all of it. I had always known that I had loved this sort of thing, but I didn’t know that I could go into it for a career. I was talking to the teacher for that class one day—her name is Jessie Rock and I think it’s very funny that her name is Rock as a geology professor—and she really helped me sort of realize that it was something that I could do with my life.

What have you been working on so far this summer?

I’ve mostly been doing a lot of programming—more than I expected—but my overall project is working on infrasound detections from atmospheric entries. In order to determine where the infrasound is coming from, we first have to know when things might have entered the atmosphere. So it’s a lot of data mining and compiling all that into spreadsheets. We’re also classifying light curves, so it’s not the infrasound that’s produced by things entering the atmosphere, but the light as a function of time and intensity. We’re looking at that, and we’re trying to characterize them to determine if there are any patterns that we can see in these curves, what these patterns might mean, and if there are certain features that might denote what kind of object is entering. 

Have you done anything like this kind of work before?

No, not really. When I was in Austria, the field work was very geotechnical engineering- and hydrology-heavy, as well as quite a bit of mapping, and I really enjoyed it. This is much more analytics based and we work on computers a lot more. I didn’t know anything about infrasound coming into this. I knew that ghost hunting shows talked about it a lot, because according to them it can make you go crazy if you’re staying too close to it. But besides that I didn’t know anything about it, so I’ve had to do a lot of literature work trying to figure out how it works and why we don’t use it for a lot of things, because it seems like a really good resource. But the technology is still pretty new, and we’re in a very quickly advancing space with it right now. So it kind of makes sense that I hadn’t heard about it before. 

What’s been a highlight so far?

I think meeting so many cool people here. Sandia has a really good intern community, and there’s lots of intern events happening, and all the researchers here really like working with interns too. They are all really kind and really helpful. So I think making friends and going to meet new people has really been a highlight. I’m liking it here in Albuquerque more than I expected. I think to any future interns that might come here: I’ve had a really good experience so far, and there’s lots of places to go outside and hike and see cool history. I went hiking just this past weekend, actually, up on the mountain.

Is there anything coming up that you’re excited for?

I’m getting the opportunity to do a couple fieldwork things this summer, and I think going further into my career I’d prefer a little bit more of that. I get to go to an in-person balloon launch later on this summer, which I’m pretty stoked about. I have to get up at like three a.m. for it. It’s like a weather balloon, but they attach an infrasound sensor to it, launch it, and then we chase after it and go pick it up. That’s one thing I’m excited for. I’m also excited about learning more—I already submitted an abstract to GSA, and I’m going to submit one to AGU as well, so I’m really excited about learning about that process. My mentor is really cool, and she’s really helping me through all this. 

How does this internship fit in with future goals that you have for yourself?

I wasn’t sure at all before I came here that I would want to do a master’s degree or go into research in the future. I was sort of considering just going right to industry, but through meeting all these new people who have similar goals to me and who are in the field and doing research as their career, it’s really helped me sort of realize that this is something that I want to go into. It’s not just a vague idea now, it’s really solidifying the things that I want to work with in the future. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the summer brings.

Summer will be finishing up their bachelor’s degree this coming semester. Additionally, they are also considering pursuing a Ph.D., depending on how much they like the master’s program. Otherwise, if they don’t find a master’s program that they really feel passionate about, they are thinking about teaching English abroad, such as in Japan. Summer really enjoys traveling, and has a big life goal to live on all seven continents at some point. Spending the summer in Albuquerque has helped them see new places, and they’d love to see more and even do field work in new places.