The National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to the STEP Partnership of San Diego (SPSD) provided stipends for 36 student interns (12 students in MESA/MEP program at each campus – San Diego City College, San Diego State University, and Southwestern Community College) this summer at various projects in science and engineering firms.

This is a unique paid internship that incorporates a team component into the student internship experience. Hired student interns were placed in teams of 2-4 students to work on projects in engineering and science firms or for faculty. Summer internships occurred between May through August of 2012, at a minimum of 100 hours. In some cases, employers and/or faculty may extend internships or create other internship opportunities for students (beyond summer 2012).

Company partners (click for intern research poster):

1. City of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation
   • MESA students at the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation interned at the Hyperion Treatment Plant located at El Segundo and helped replace the outdated control systems that facilitates plant operations through the city of LA.
2. Aerospace Structures research with Dr. Satchi Venkataraman
   • MESA students with Dr. Satchi Venkataraman conducted research on composite sandwich construction.
3. Retired Senior Volunteer Patrol, sponsored through the SDSU Electrical and Computer Engineering department
   • MESA students at RSVP worked on a website that will function as a way for the  members to view and assign their patrol shifts.
4. Electrical and Computer Engineering research with Dr. Gordon Lee
   • MESA students working under Dr. Lee researched a semi-autonomous, mobile robot with spatial recognition and wireless communication capabilities.
5. Anza Borrego Desert State Park
   • MESA students at Anza-Borrego Dessert State Park helped the department by measuring the teeth of the park’s canid specimens and attempt to find correlations between teeth measurements and species to aid in identification.
6. NIH REU at Mechanical Engineering department, Northern Illinois University
7. Scripps Research Institute
   • MESA students at Scripps RSVP conducted research on the effects of Interleukin 7 in germ line transcription.
8. UCSD Moores Cancer Research Center
   • MESA students at UCSD Moores Cancer Research Center conducted research on Inhibition by Curcumin of Glycolytic Enzymes.
9. Assure Controls
   • MESA students at Assure Controls tested different water samples from fresh water to ocean water can be tested to establish the level of toxicity of a body of water and its danger to living organisms.
10. NAVAIR Fleet Readiness Center Southwest (Mr. Robert Espinosa, Ms. Sheila Tsai, Ms. Claudia Garcia)
    • MESA students at NAVAIR Fleet Readiness Center Southwest worked on increasing turbine performance, comprehensive databases, and ensuring environmental compliance regualations were met.
11. California Space Grant Consortium
    • MESA students researching under the California Space Grant Consortium worked on the Aqua Tunnel and Research Internship (ATARI) Project and saw certain effects such as the supercritical wave interactions that can be compared to supersonic shockwaves.
12. Rick Engineering Company
    • MESA students at Rick Engineering conducted calculations on plan sheets of single-family Community projects to ensure their accuracy.
13. LEE & RO Inc.
    • MESA students at Lee & Ro conducted various inspections in coordination with the City of San Diego.
14. Kennedy/Jenks Consultants
    • MESA students at Kennedy Jenks research various utility aspects of project and parcel plans.
15. Raytheon Company
    • MESA students at Raytheon contributed to a highly mobile robotic system design that consists of a perimeter protection surveillance system, analysis software, and engagement subsystems.
16. Caltrans (Mr. Lawrence Emerson, Mr. Roy Flores, Mr. Al Jafri Abu-Bakr, Ms. Marla Deyoe)
    • MESA students at Caltrans surveyed ramp performance, worked on design plans, drafted strip maps, and assisted inspectors in construction projects.
17. Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering (SDSU & University of Washington)
    • MESA students researching under the ERC at SDSU helped the program’s overall goal to determine how to extract  and effectively use neural signals from the human brain. One of the applications was to develop prosthetics which directly interface with the brain.
18. Ambient Control Systems Inc.
    • MESA students at Ambient Control Systems performed water quality field tests and identified effects on an ecosystem.
19. San Diego Gas & Electric
    • MESA students at SDG&E worked with voltage recorders to ensure customers’ energy configurations were correct.
20. Geography research with Dr. Lisa Chaddock
    • MESA students researching under Professor Lisa Chaddock helped reassess and depict Critical Environmental Areas in California.
21. NIH REU at Community College Summer Enrichment Program, University of Maryland
22. Bio4Front Inc.
    • MESA students at Bio4Front developed a core curriculum  and instructional tools in Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine for the education of potential clients.
23. SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific (Dr. James Rohr, Mr. Ayax Ramirez)
    • MESA students at the various SPAWAR departments helped build an underwater robot Seaperch, for use in outreach to pre-college students. They also worked on projects covering a wide range of fields including photonics, signal processing, cryptography, and software development.  They designed and optimized low frequency antennas and utilized programming embedded systems in C and C++ languages.

MESA student interns:

1. SDSU – Morales, Angel
2. SDSU – Reyna, Bernabe
3. SDSU – Fortin, Elizabeth
4. SDSU – James, Scott
5. SWC – Barriga, Victor
6. SDSU – Gomez, Roberto
7. SWC – Byrum, Steven
8. SWC – Sotomayor, Arturo
9. SWC – Alvarez, Carlos
10. SWC – Gomez, Vanessa
11. SDSU – Perez, Ariana
12. SDSU – Valdivieso, Evita
13. SDSU – Gonzales, Veronica
14. SDSU – Armenta, Edgar
15. SDCC – Estrada, Rogelio
16. SDCC – Mercado, Diana
17. SDSU – Aceveda, Diane
18. SDSU – Aguilar, Isa
19. SWC – Imperial, Jireh
20. SWC – Rodriguez, Jesus
21. SDCC – Penaloza, Madel
22. SDCC – Armijo, Armando
23. SDCC – Rojas-Colin, Angelica
24. SDSU – Cazares, Cesar
25. SDSU – Agcolicol, Michael
26. SDSU – Bobadilla, Joe
27. SDCC – Alvarez, Natalia
28. SDCC – Custodia, Jordan
29. SDCC – Lopez, Leonard
30. SDCC – Gathers, Macklin
31. SDCC – Aviles, Armando
32. SDCC – Smith, Charles
33. SDSU – Amparo, Caesar
34. SDCC – Aristide, Thomas
35. SDCC – Thorpe, Nicholas
36. SDSU – Pizarro, Leonora
37. SDSU – Akram, Tamina
38. SDSU – Roman, Juan Adrian
39. SDSU – Roman, Fabian
40. SDSU – Gagui, Marc
41. SDCC – Menjivar, William
42. SDSU – Handy, Jade
43. SWC – Bogart, Frank
44. SWC – Shamblen, Jonathan
45. SDSU – Schiedermayer, Jason
46. SDSU – Duran, Gabriel
47. SWC – Gonzalez, Daniel
48. SWC – Moran, Alma
49. SWC – Solorio, Fernando
50. SWC – Carpenter, Charles
51. SWC – Jacome, Pablo
52. SWC – Tkach, Artem
53. SWC – Rodriguez, Ramiro
54. SWC – Leyva, Manuel
55. SDSU – Prsha, Steven
56. SWC – Chavez, Alex
57. SDCC – Aloisio, Jessica
58. SWC – Sycks, Melody

Collaboratively, each student intern team created a joint poster that detailed their team’s experiences at their respective companies and presented to those in attendance at the 5th Annual NSF/MESA Summer Team Internship Symposium held on August 10, 2012 at San Diego State University East Commons.

The program for the luncheon included keynote speakers David T. Hayhurst, SDSU Dean of the College of Engineering, and San Diego MESA Alliance (SDMA) Industry Advisory Board Chairs Maria-Victoria Charles of Hamilton Sundstrand and Daisy Galeana of Solar Turbines, followed by student and mentor recognition. Open poster presentation/networking  closed out the event.

Photo gallery: