Profiles

Gary Braun

Gary Braun, who will be a senior majoring in chemistry at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) this fall, has already accumulated a summer of relevant work experience as a student employee at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

In an interview conducted during the last week of his summer 2003 employment in Los Alamos, Braun said he first heard about Research Internships in Science and Engineering (RISE) at UCSB. "A professor that I do undergraduate research with mentioned it to me, and I saw flyers around UCSB," he said. The professor was Geoffrey Strouse, who once worked at the Laboratory.

Braun applied to RISE and was accepted into the program. He spent the summer working in Bioscience 4, where his mentor was Andrew Dattelbaum. He also worked with Andrew Shreve.

Braun said his project for the summer involved "surface chemistry of silica thin films." On an average day, he said, he created porous thin films, went through the steps to functionalize them, and characterized their surface chemistry.

Dattelbaum said, with a chuckle, "You're in the lab all day long."

The work Braun was doing has applications in dealing with biomolecules. It is easier to characterize them if they are immobilized. Once they are immobilized, a researcher can introduce different environmental effects and study the reaction.

Dattelbaum said such work makes it possible to get a high loading on the film and to get better information on the structure-function relationships of such things as proteins.

Although Los Alamos is a small community, Braun said he had no problem with housing during his internship. He stayed in the University of New Mexico-Los Alamos apartments on 9th Street and found them "fine."

Asked how he felt about the community, he said it took "a little exploration initially to see what's here as far as restaurants and recreational possibilities." One place he enjoyed was the Los Alamos Municipal Golf Course. He went there with people from B-4. He also took trips to Santa Fe with people he had met in his apartment complex, and he enjoyed going hiking. "It's good here," he said.

When he wanted to see a movie, however, he had to drive to Española, a community approximately 20 miles away. Los Alamos was temporarily without a movie theater in the summer of 2003, although one was under construction.

Braun said he enjoyed meeting the other students who lived in his apartment complex, and the complex provided free barbecuing equipment. They had "little gatherings" that were fun, he said. He also went to the annual Student Picnic arranged by the Laboratory.

Asked whether his work at the Laboratory related well to his work at UCSB, he said, "Somewhat." His studies at the university have involved materials science and structure on the nanoscale, he said, but not necessarily thin films. He learned more surface chemistry and organic chemistry in Los Alamos, he said, "something I can take back."

Asked if he might like to return for another summer in Los Alamos, Braun said, "Yes. Everything's been good."

He said he is thinking about doing graduate work in inorganic or physical chemistry after he completes his bachelor's degree in December, but he hasn't yet made up his mind.

Asked if he would recommend the Laboratory to other students, he said, "Absolutely." The reasons he mentioned were "the work environment, the science, the interest of the people you're working with who are teaching you."

Would he consider returning to Los Alamos as a technical staff member himself someday? "It's definitely a possibility," he said. "It's a productive work environment."