Tag Archives: internship

UCI features Ervin Meneses

Domestic science laboratory in Hartford Public High School, Hartford, CT. No date given, but ...

You probably don’t know who Ervin Meneses is. He’s a high school student that comes to my work constantly. He’s dedicated and working hard to make it to college.

He has spent this summer working at University of California, Irvine, for Dr. Reginald Penner, one of the chemistry professors. And UCI interviewed him and wrote a good, though occasionally slightly sensationalist, piece on him. It’s a featured article on their website! From the article:

Each weekday, after donning purple gloves, a white lab coat and goggles, Ervin starts to work. His mission: to grow gold-coated filaments 1,000th the width of a human hair. Creating nanowires is a tough, tedious task that stumps even veteran researchers, says his mentor, Jung Yun Kim, a third-year graduate student. But Ervin never gives up.

“He’s really something else,” says Kim. “I feel more motivated to work every day he’s here. He is so full of life.”

This kid is brilliant, and I’m so happy that he took the opportunity to work at UCI. And it was really fun to read about him here. I hope you get to have moments like this. It makes the day brighter.

*the photo is from Cornell University’s Flickr stream.