Directed Energy Summer Intern (DESI) Program: The Center for Directed Energy (CDE), participated in the Directed Energy Professional Society’s (DEPS) 2010 Summer Intern Program funded by the High Energy Laser Joint Technology Office (HEL JTO) during the period May 2010 through August 2010. During that timeframe, six undergraduate students participated in the program. During each student’s experience, they conducted research supporting ongoing AFIT research efforts. AFIT MS and PhD students, faculty, and research staff members served as mentors for the interns. As a capstone event, each presented their research effort via a briefing at the ENP Physics seminar.

The DESI program is executed as a subset of the AFIT E2S2I program. AFIT, in partnership with DEPS, utilizes a national search to recruit these students. Interns reported that overall, they grew both personally and professionally as a result of their internship experience. They also stated that they were pleased with the type of challenges that the experimental or computational portion of their internship afforded them. Two of the interns stated in their summary reports:

“I would certainly recommend CDE to fellow students. I think that this has been a great way to gain professional experience and to engage in continued learning outside of the classroom. This experience has taught me about the world of research and allowed me to expand my abilities into other disciplines.” (Brown)

“The experience was more like a job than an internship. Assigning projects and holding weekly meetings allows interns to function as an employee in the center.” (Huber)

Below is a listing of all six students who participated in the 2010 program:

CDE is currently reviewing applicants for the 2011 DESI Program.