The SDSU physics department welcomes back Micah Schuster from his second internship at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Micah is a Ph.D. student in computational science working with Calvin Johnson in the field of nuclear physics. He was brought to the lab through the Institute for Scientific Computing Research to work with Sofia Quaglioni in the computational nuclear physics group. This summer his research involved structure and observable calculations of hydrogen-3 and helium-4 within the ab initio no-core shell model.
“Working at LLNL for the past two summers has been an amazing experience. The Lab offers a great opportunity to interact with top researchers in my field,” Schuster said. His project this summer, “Operator evolution within the ab initio no-core shell model,” was selected as one of the winning posters at the lab-wide student poster symposium. This is the second year in a row that he as been selected to receive an award. In 2012, his project, titled “Ab initio many-body calculations of the 4He photo-absorption cross-section” was also selected as a winning poster.
Next spring Micah will be applying for the Lawrence Scholar Program to continue his research at the lab. This program grants top Ph.D. students appointments of up to four years to conduct research of interest to the lab while completing their dissertation.