PEER Summer Interns Conclude Their Research Experience at 2012 PEER Annual Meeting

The final capstone event for the 2012 PEER Summer Interns occurred at the 2012 PEER Annual Meeting. After an intensive research experience for 10 weeks at one of the three host institutions (University of Washington, UC Davis, and UC Berkeley), the students were able, for the first time, to share their research projects and results with the wider earthquake engineering community.

Each of the students carefully prepared a research poster based on tips learned during their orientation communication workshop and feedback from their mentors. They all were well-prepared to share their research projects having practiced sharing their research to their fellow interns and mentors during three separate presentation opportunities over the summer.

 Eduardo Vega and Dorian Krausz

2012 Summer Interns: Eduardo Vega (left) and Dorian Krausz (right)

The final program evaluation by the interns indicated the percentage of students that reported either good or great skill gains in the following areas:

  • Preparing a scientific poster (100% reported good or great gains)
  • Making oral presentations (92% reported good or great gains)
  • Defending an argument when asked questions (67% reported good or great gains)
  • Explaining my project to people outside my field (84% reported good or great gains)

 Dustin Cook and Andrew Lo

2012 Summer Interns: Dustin Cook (left) and Andrew Lo (right)

These newly developed skills served the students well as the presented their posters amid 26 graduate students to the diverse group of nearly 200 attendees including faculty, post-docs, other grad-students, undergraduate students, practicing professionals and others interested in PEER’s ongoing earthquake engineering research. As one intern stated in their final program evaluation: “For someone who is uncomfortable presenting material in front of people, this research experience helped immensely.”

The full list of intern presenters at the 2012 PEER Annual Meeting is shown below:

  • Collin Anderson (University of California, Davis) — PEER Summer Intern UC Davis
    download poster (PDF, 1.2 MB)
  • Dustin Cook (California State University, Chico) — PEER Summer Intern UC Berkeley
    download poster (PDF, 1.5 MB)
  • Jose Jimenez (University of California, Irvine) — PEER Summer Intern University of Washington
    download poster (PDF, 1.3 MB)
  • Dorian Krausz (University of California, Los Angeles) — PEER Summer Intern UC Berkeley
    download poster (PDF, 8.7 MB)
  • Andrew Lo (Rice University) — PEER Summer Intern UC Berkeley
    download poster (PDF, 6.9 MB)
  • Stephanie Lopez (University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez) — PEER Summer Intern University of Washington
    download poster (PDF, 15.7 MB)
  • Nicole McCurdy (University of California, Davis) — PEER Summer Intern UC Davis
    download poster (PDF, 4.4 MB)
  • Paul Shipman (California State University, Sacramento) — PEER Summer Intern UC Davis
    download poster (PDF, 4 MB)
  • Alex Sturm (University of California, Davis) — PEER Summer Intern UC Davis
    download poster (PDF, 5.1 MB)
  • Eduardo Vega (Cal Poly Pomona) — PEER Summer Intern UC Berkeley
    download poster (PDF, 12.2 MB)

Not Present due to EIT conflict:

  • Carlos Esparza (University of Texas at Arlington) — PEER Summer Intern University of Washington
  • Michael Erceg (Widener University) — PEER Summer Intern University of Washington

Thanks to the all the PEER interns for their dedication to their program this summer! It was a pleasure to have you involved with PEER!

Heidi Tremayne with interns

Heidi Tremayne with the 2012 Summer Interns

Find more information about the PEER Internship Program.

Funding for the 2012 PEER Internship Program was provided by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. EEC-1063138. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).