ORAU/DUPONT/NASA - (August 18, 2003) - His smile is as magnetic as his interest in his field. And Denard Cox, a senior in electrical engineering at Tuskegee University, is feeling out his future while getting some hands-on experience.
"I want to teach," Cox says, "but I’ve always dreamed of being a scientist at a national lab first." He credits the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities Research Participation Program, which is administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, with helping him narrow the focus of his professional goals.
Last summer, Cox spent 10 weeks at the New Brunswick Lab in Argonne, Ill. - shadowing his mentor, setting up "clean" rooms for experiments and learning his way around a national lab. He was even asked to apply his skills in electrical engineering to help refurbish a mass spectrometer that the lab used to clean and analyze filaments.
"It was a great learning experience," remembers Cox. "We actually fixed it and then got to run some tests on it." A mass spectrometer uses electric and magnetic fields to measure the weight of charged particles. It is often used in industrial and academic applications for both routine and research purposes, such as in the pharmaceutical industry for drug discovery, metabolism and testing, and in environmental industries to test water quality.
"The program really built my confidence and reinforced what I already knew," says Cox. "I have a thirst for knowledge, and whatever they want to teach, I want to learn. It’s even helped me develop longer range educational goals, and I applied for and was accepted to the program again-this time at Oak Ridge National Laboratory."
For this summer’s project, Cox is dealing with magnets in the development of a prototype that will simulate the extraction of uranium from wastewater of nuclear plants. "There is more ‘science’ this time," says Cox. "The magnets are cool, and it has given me a great thesis idea for graduate school."
Cox will graduate in May 2004 and is already applying to graduate schools. "If you want these types of great opportunities, you’ve got to keep trying," notes Cox. "Be persistent and don’t limit yourself. There are many programs available to students at major national laboratories, and you get to study with people of various backgrounds and expertise."
With this experience under his belt, Cox will be attracting all kinds of job offers or an acceptance letter to grad school. Either way, he now has the draw on his profession, and the allure of a future in electro-magnetics is pulling him toward a realization of his dreams.
Other recently announced Tuskegee University participants in summer programs:
Lindsey Alexander of Chicago participated in the 2003 NASA Spaceflight and Life Sciences Training Program at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Alexander, a rising junior at Tuskegee University, is majoring in animal science. She is a member of the honor roll and the recipient of the Distinguished Presidential Scholarship and the Mercedes Benz Scholarship. She is the daughter of Bryant and Sharon Alexander. The training program for college undergraduates is an intensive six-week summer program offering an in-depth examination of Life Sciences research and flight operations. Students participate in the conceptualization, design and execution of experiments dedicated to enabling human exploration of space, as well as assessment of the environmental impacts of a launch site.
Venus Welch, a Tuskegee University student, recently completed the Professional Internship Program at Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc. Welch’s internship was in disease resistance at Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a subsidiary of DuPont, the world’s leading source of customized solutions for farmers, livestock producers and grain and oilseed processors. DuPont’s headquarters are in Wilmington, Del.
Veronica Blackman, a senior biology major at Tuskegee University, was one of six undergraduates to participate in the 2-3 Summer Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program at Kansas State University. She was one of the nine participants selected for the ninth annual program.
K-State’s nine-week program is open only to junior and senior students with a 3.0 grade point average who have career interest in biology, other sciences and engineering-related fields. The program is sponsored by K-State’s Graduate School, and provides a stipend, some travel expenses and room and board at Kansas State University. Blackman was part of a research group in bioinformatics, which combines biology and computer science tools. The project goal was to bring together students with biology and computer backgrounds so they learned to combine skills to understand the data about the DNA sequences of plant disease-response genes in rice.
Blackman’s research on genetics mutation in rice was “Molecular and Informatic Tools to Identify Specific Gene Mutations.” She plans a career in medicine after graduating from Tuskegee. She heard about K-State summer program through Tuskegee’s Biology Learning Center. She said the summer research opportunity “helped me become much more self-reliant.” Blackman is the daughter of Geneva Blackman, Memphis, Tenn. She graduated from Overton High School in 2000. For more information about the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities Research Participation Program, contact ORAU Communications Specialist Wendy West of Oak Ridge, Tenn., at 865-576-0028 or westw@orau.gov.
Contact Desiree Fletcher-Hayes, 515-334-6768, desiree.fletcher-hayes@pioneer.com for more about the Professional Internship Program at Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.
Write to find out more about the NASA Spaceflight and Life Sciences Training Program at Tuskegee University, Room 100 Campbell Hall, Tuskegee, AL 36088.
