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Larry Isenhower studies optics during his summer internship with Dr. Thad Walker at the University of Wisconsin. |
Although students have many opportunities to do summer research with ACU at national (or international) labs, some choose to pursue internships elsewhere. ACU professors do everything they can to help students obtain internships in specific fields of interest.
For example, Chris Thompson is an ACU physics major who intends to enter medical school and focus on medical research. He participated in a ten week research internship during the summer of 2004 at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas in the Department of Molecular Biophysics. He learned techniques in protein purification, kinetics, and X-ray crystallography that combined the principles of biology, chemistry, biochemistry, and physics.
When asked how his physics background prepared him for his internship, Chris explained, "I feel that there does not exist a more dynamic education than physics. A combined understanding of physics and the biomedical sciences allows me to explore problems from a different perspective. My ability to problem solve has been finely tuned by my training in physics, and on several occasions I have been complemented for my ability to quickly adapt to difficult problems and situations. Physics trains you to think in ways that you never have before, allowing you to attack problems using new and different techniques."
