Brookhaven Women in Science Holds High School Career Day at Brookhaven Lab

November 30, 2009

enlarge

Brookhaven Lab researcher Martine Mirrione (left) shows (clockwise, from left) students Samantha Maier, Shoreham-Wading River High School; Elise Budd, Bellport High School; and Casey Heely, Rocky Point High School, the workings of positron emission tomography, an imaging method that she uses to study depression.

UPTON, NY — About 50 female students from three local high schools – Bellport, Rocky Point, and Shoreham-Wading River – recently learned about careers in science and toured world-class facilities at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. This career day was coordinated by Brookhaven Women in Science (BWIS), a not-for-profit organization that promotes the advancement of women in science, and funded by Brookhaven Science Associates, to interest young women in careers in science.

During the daylong program, the students were given an overview of Brookhaven Lab, BWIS, and the Women in Science and Engineering program at Stony Brook University. They listened to a panel discussion on scientific careers given by Brookhaven researchers: physicist Cecilia Sanchez-Hanke, neuropharmacologist Martine Mirrione, and biologist Elizabeth Scotto-Lavino. Chemist Alicia Reid gave a talk on research performed at the Laboratory on such diseases as addiction and depression using an imaging method called positron emission tomography.

The students toured the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, where scientists study and fabricate materials on a scale of billionths of a meter, and the National Synchrotron Light Source, where researchers use x-rays, ultraviolet light and infrared light to probe materials as diverse as computer chips and viruses. They also enjoyed hands-on exhibits at the Science Learning Center.

2009-11036  |  INT/EXT  |  Newsroom