Queen's NEWS-G Summer Students

In late April Queen’s faculty Gilles Gerbier, Ryan Martin and Guillaume Giroux welcomed four new Queen’s undergraduate student summer researchers to the NEWS-G collaboration.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic and current social distancing protocols their internship experience is, thus far, quite different from previous summers. Rather than working and learning in close quarters with their peers inside the NEWS-G campus laboratory, the students are working on their summer research projects from home. Despite the physical distance, the group remains united through frequent online video conferencing, be it for training seminars, progress meetings or simply socializing.

Directly supervising the summer students is lead scientist Philippe Gros, with postdoctoral fellows Alexis Brossard and Jean-Francois Caron assisting with training and mentoring, with graduate students Marie Vidal (PhD), Francisco Fernandez (PhD), George Savvidis (PhD) and Jean-Marie Coquillat (MSc) helping to acclimatize and orient the newest members.

Queen’s NEWS-G is also fortunate to have former students Carter Garrah and Douglas Gowing rejoin the collaboration this summer.

A very warm welcome to Ashley Micuda, Clara Mitchinson, Csaba Nemeth, and Frankie Polak. Below you can learn a bit about our newest collaboration members.

Our Summer Student Researchers

Ashley Micuda

I will soon be a third year Physics major at Queen’s University. I was initially attracted to doing research on dark matter this summer because I believed it would be a great opportunity to work with amazing scientists and get hands-on experience of what it’s like to do research while stimulating my passion for physics. Next year I will have the opportunity to apply what I have learned this summer towards my undergraduate education in Physics at Queen’s. Once graduated I plan to undertake a masters degree in Physics. This summer I am working from my hometown, Oakville, ON, where I have been keeping busy by playing sports and working out, as well as taking an online summer course to get ahead in school.

Clara Mitchinson

I just finished my first year of Engineering and will be going into Engineering Physics, specializing in Computing, next year. I first heard about SNOLAB when I was in high school and it’s been my goal to work there ever since. I’ve always been interested in science, especially space and physics. I applied for this internship because I wanted to increase my understanding of physics and programming outside of school. This summer I’m working from Oakville and when I’m not working, I’m probably going for a long walk to keep my surroundings interesting during social isolation.

Csaba Nemeth

I just completed my second year of Engineering Physics at Queen’s University, in the computing option. I had the great opportunity to tour the SNOLAB facilities last year and I was instantly intrigued and curious about all the experiments. Dark matter is fascinating because it stretches from the unthinkably small scale to governing the physics of the entire universe; hopefully I can wrap my head around these concepts in the coming months. The kind people at NEWS-G have been instrumental in fostering my interest about dark matter, and I am sure as the summer progresses this will continue. I am currently working from Kingston, and busying my time with cooking, reading, and catching up on a long list of recommended movies.

Frankie Polak

I am a Physics major at Queen’s and I recently completed my third year. My dream is to become a physics professor, and I joined NEWS-G in order to gain dark matter research experience. Right now I’m working at my parents’ house in Ajax, Ontario, but I hope to be back at Queen’s by January. To pass the time at home, I’ve been reading a lot, knitting socks, and playing with my pet rats, Simon and Garfunkel.