Two students awarded NIST summer research fellowship
This summer St. Olaf College students Mara Stutzman ‘16 and Signe Braafladt ‘16 are conducting research in Gaithersburg, Maryland, as part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship.
One of the world’s leading research organizations and home to four Nobel Prize winners, NIST aims to advance measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve quality of life.
The institute’s summer fellowship seeks to give students majoring in science, mathematics, and engineering fields hands-on research experience.
Stutzman and Braafladt worked with St. Olaf Associate Professor of Chemistry Beth Abdella ’82 to apply for the 11-week program, which pairs each student with a research mentor.
This summer Stutzman, an economics major and statistics concentrator, is working with NIST mathematical statistician Steve Lund ‘06 to study statistical methods to measure gene expression.
Braafladt, a chemistry and sociology/anthropology major on the pre-med track, is working with research chemists Donald Atha and Vytas Reipa to study the effects of DNA damage through a technique known as comet assay.