by Grace Hwang, SCEC Education Program Assistant, USC

This past summer, fifty-one students from around the country interned for the Southern California Earthquake Center. Although most interns came from southern California, many were from far away states such as Pennsylvania, Georgia, Ohio and Texas. What makes the internship program at SCEC so unique is the flexibility and range of opportunity SCEC provides its interns. Spanning across three separate internship programs, SCEC incorporates all fields of college students who range in year from freshman to master's level.

Larger imageUSEIT alums Ryan Berti and Michael Ihrig (current ACCESS-U students) explain to the USEIT interns their challenge for the summer

The Undergraduate Studies in Earthquake Information Technology (USEIT [pronounced "use-I-T"]) program is an internship that centers on collaboration and innovation. Undergraduate students from all majors across the United States gather together every day for eight weeks in a computer laboratory at the University of Southern California and take on a Grand Challenge. This year's Grand Challenge was to "Deliver SCEC-VDO images and animations of faults and earthquake sequences to SCEC, the Earthquake Country Alliance, and other virtual organizations via a content management system that captures the metadata and guides the user." SCEC-VDO is a virtual display of objects software program that was first developed by USEIT interns in 2002 and continues to be modified every year by its successors.

Larger imageUSEIT interns Brian Oliver and Magali Barba work on SCEC-VDO

Larger imageSURE intern Amanda Fabian stands on the San Andreas Fault trace

Larger imageSURE intern Sara Alsbury conducts field work using a solar-powered station for GPS-monitoring of the San Andreas Fault.

The Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) internship program allows undergraduate upperclassmen in various institutions to work one-on-one with a SCEC scientist in their field of specialty. The projects from this past summer include research on topics such as earthquake forecasting, creating digital 3D models of faults in a region, and applying a new GPS time-series method to monitor fault slip rates. Over the course of the summer, interns are able to participate in earthquake-related research, conduct field work with earthquake scientists, and attend the All-Intern Field Trip, while being located at a SCEC institution outside of the University of Southern California. Amanda Fabian, a SURE intern from this summer, worked at Georgia Tech under Zhigang Peng on the project "Systematic Search of Triggered Non-Volcanic Tremor in California and Taiwan." Analyzing seismic data, particularly low frequency S-waves at a 2-8 hertz signal/noise ratio, Amanda identified tremors in California and Taiwan and obtained useful information in aiding the understanding between triggered and regular tremor. For Amanda, this internship was "a way that I could gain new experience from a different perspective and apply what I learned in the classroom."

Larger imageACCESS intern Emmett McQuinn

The Advancement of Cyberinfrastructure Careers through Earthquake System Science (ACCESS) program is subdivided into two categories: ACCESS-U for undergraduates and ACCESS-G for graduate students. Almost a mix between the SURE and USEIT intern programs, the ACCESS program lets interns work independently in various SCEC institutions under a mentor on research involving earthquake system science while utilizing information technology and computer science to analyze data and produce visualizations such as 3D models. Centered on thesis research, interns spend their time developing work for either their senior thesis or their master's thesis. Their internship spans across a year to allow them ample time to conduct research and then develop and complete their thesis. Emmett McQuinn, an ACCESS-G student, says he couldn't have asked for a better "year round experience in a field that reflected my interest in scientific computation."

Larger imageSURE intern Warren Yamashita, USEIT intern Yongxin Fei, and ACCESS intern Emmett McQuinn bond during the SCEC All-Intern Field Trip