McNair scholar visits Brookhaven National Laboratory
Suzanne Wheeler of Port Neches, a senior physics major and McNair scholar at Lamar University, traveled with her McNair research advisor, James Drachenberg, assistant professor of physics, to Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in Long Island, New York, for the STAR Collaboration Meeting.
STAR is a BNL-based high-energy nuclear physics experiment composed of 61 institutions from 13 countries, with 612 collaborators. Drachenberg serves as co-convener of the STAR Spin Physics Working Group and helped to organize the meeting, chair plenary and parallel sessions, and present a working group summary talk in the final plenary session.
Wheeler is the first Lamar student to receive a guest appointment at BNL and was sponsored by the spokesperson for the STAR collaboration. She was one of the only undergraduates participating in the meeting. Drachenberg provided her a tour of the STAR experimental hall and visits to two historic scientific sites on Long Island: Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe laboratory in Shoreham and Albert Einstein's summering cottage in Cutchogue.
