9 July 2008
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| Sirvard Nshanyan, Lynn Tai, Amalia Prada Fernandez, Arielle Yablonovitch, David Wong, Haley Hunter-Zinck, and Randy Lee from the University of California, San Diego, are in Melbourne on a nine-week internship with the Faculty of Information Technology. |
Seven students from the University of California, San Diego, have swapped a California summer for a Melbourne winter in the name of science, participating in a highly-sought after e-research internship program at Monash's Faculty of Information Technology.
The Pacific Rim Undergraduate Experiences (PRIME) internship program gives students the opportunity to undertake international collaborative research in a Pacific Rim country.
The students Lynn Tai (2nd year Biology), Arielle Yablonovitch (2nd year Physics), David Wong (3rd year Chemical Engineering), Randy Lee (2nd year Bioengineering), Sirvard Nshanyan (3rd year Computer Science/Engineering), Amalia Prada Fernandez (3rd year Bioengineering/Biotechnology) and Haley Hunter-Zinck (3rd year Bioengineering/Bioinformatics) will work under the mentorship of Professor David Abramson in Monash's e-science and grid engineering lab (message lab).
The students will learn how to work with Nimrod, a software tool developed at Monash that enables users to harness multiple computers for large-scale simulations.
Professor Abramson visited UCSD in May to prepare the students for their visit, the fifth such Monash exchange.
"In previous years students have spent the first week becoming familiar with the Nimrod software," Professor Abramson said. "This year we decided to get a head start so they could get straight into the science when they arrived."
Dr Peter Arzberger from the PRIME program said it was great to get the students up and running before they left the US.
"It was terrific to see their enthusiasm and to see them achieve something in only a few short hours," Dr Arzberger said.
The students said they were enjoying their time in Melbourne and the opportunity to work with the Nimrod creators.
"It's great to see how our different major research projects align with Monash," Ms Prada-Fernandez said.
"Melbourne's a fantastic place to live, everyone is so welcoming and there's so much to do," Ms Hunter-Zinck added.
The students will be at Monash for nine weeks.
Meanwhile, Monash undergraduate students studying computer science,software engineering or related areas can undertake an eight-week summer semester international research project at UCSD.
Potential Monash Undergraduate Research Projects Abroad (MURPA) studentswill have the chance to meet with UCSD professors, including Dr Arzberger, during a seminar series starting next week.
For more information on the seminar series and MURPA visit the MURPAwebsite.
For more information on the Pacific Rim Undergraduate Experiences (PRIME)internship program visit the PRIME website. | 
