2024 JUMP Into STEM Interns Gain Real-World Career Skills

2024 JUMP Into STEM Interns Gain Real-World Career Skills

Internships Provide JUMP Into STEM Winners With Experiential Buildings Research Opportunities

Pop quiz: What sets highly educated college students apart from their peers when entering a competitive job market? The ability to network? Giving effective oral presentations in front of their peers and industry specialists? Proposal writing to secure funding for research?

If you answered, "All of these and more," you are right. And while some of these skills are introduced in the classroom, many are learned through experiential learning opportunities like collegiate competitions and internships.

Enter JUMP into STEM. This U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) program supports the goals and objectives listed in the recently released Decarbonizing the U.S. Economy by 2050: A National Blueprint for the Buildings Sector by challenging students to find new solutions to increase building energy efficiency while taking equity, affordability, and resilience into consideration. JUMP into STEM Final Competition winners receive a unique opportunity to build up their resumes ahead of graduation by interning at one of three national laboratories, including the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). This year, three of the 11 winners chose NREL as their 10-week paid internship destination: Maddax Frye from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Spencer Marinac from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and Levi Premer from Purdue University (who will be attending as a doctoral student this fall).

"It's kind of crazy to be among all these really smart people who have decided to do this for a career, and they get to do this every day," Frye said. "It's amazing. My biggest takeaway is that you don't see doing research at a national lab as a viable option while you're in school. So, seeing it as an option has been eye opening."

JUMP into STEM focuses on interdisciplinary solutions to some of the biggest challenges in the buildings sector while encouraging contestants to work together as a team, present their ideas to other professionals, and network. For contest winners, these activities eventually feed into a summer internship.

"It feels like JUMP into STEM is a very tailored program," said Lixi Liu, a researcher in NREL's Building Technologies and Science Center and a mentor to Maddax Frye. "Once you're in the competition, you have all of these perks, like collaboration with the lab and a paid trip to visit the industry sponsor, and you get to pick what project you work on as part of your internship."

For each of this summer's interns, JUMP into STEM and experience at NREL have led to new opportunities.

Room To Explore

Maddax Frye, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Maddax Frye's Introduction to Electrical Engineering class was given the choice to either participate in JUMP into STEM or take a traditional final exam at the end of the semester. Naturally, the class chose to participate in the competition. When Frye's team won the Final Competition, she chose to spend her summer interning at NREL with mentors Lixi Liu and Jeff Maguire, researchers in NREL's Building Technologies and Science Center.

The research project Frye worked on this summer was related to affordable and equitable residential electrification under electrical panel and service constraints. She compared the size of electrical panels in the current stock of residential housing to the size the panels must be to fully electrify these homes and increase the capacity for electrical demand.

"The research side of things is completely new," Frye said. "It's not what they focus on in school at all. The technical aspects are always going to be the same, but it's an entirely new perspective as far as the aspects of the problem you're looking at-new technologies and implementation and feasibility."

"Maddax came highly recommended, and I can see why," Liu said. "She's very independent and a quick study who can get a lot done with minimal guidance. This is especially impressive since she's only a junior in college."

Maguire added, "We're having a hard time finding stuff for her to do, she's doing things so quickly."

After completing her internship this summer, Frye plans to continue her engineering studies with a focus in mechanical engineering. She hopes to explore more opportunities with the national laboratory system next summer and then eventually consider how the laboratories fit into her future career choice.

Spencer Marinac, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Spencer Marinac was introduced to JUMP into STEM when a teaching assistant who had formerly interned at NREL suggested it as a capstone project for his senior design class.

"The hardest part of JUMP into STEM was the presentations," Marinac said. "This was my first time giving a presentation with some real risk involved to an audience that wasn't just my classmates. I'm not the most extroverted, but it helped me with that, in addition to networking by talking to people at JUMP into STEM. They're both useful tools that I had to learn on the fly."

Over the summer, Marinac worked with his mentor, NREL Building Technologies and Science Center researcher Ransisi Huang, on a clustering analysis approach to improve the modeling of thermal storage integrated heat pump systems. Using NREL building modeling tools like ResStock^TM and EnergyPlus®, Marinac looked at a full year of energy load data and clustered those data into days to simplify the data pull.

"Spencer has done a really good job and communicated very actively with me," Huang said. "He's very independent and responsive and can get things done. He's an excellent student."

After his internship, Marinac is returning to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University as a new graduate student in mechanical engineering, working toward a master's degree. Although his postgraduation plans have not changed, his internship at NREL has opened his eyes to the possibility of incorporating simulation tools into future work.

"The internship has given me options and room to explore," Marinac said.

Levi Premer, Purdue University

While a graduate student at Purdue University, Levi Premer was introduced to JUMP into STEM by his advisor. One of the Final Competition's winning teams in 2023 was from Purdue University, and Premer's advisor encouraged his students to submit a proposal to build their proposal-writing skills.

"For JUMP into STEM we came up with a project, concept, and wrote a plan of action," Premer said.

"Although my other teammates and I were in a similar research area, we had completely different research subjects. So, we had to mesh our expertise to come up with a fluid and sound idea that was feasible. I think that process assisted in me learning how to better work with individuals and leverage skill sets and expertise to meet a single goal with our multifaceted backgrounds."

Premer chose to intern at NREL this summer. Although this was the fifth or sixth internship of his academic career, this one was unique: It was his first hands-on experience in a research lab within a national laboratory. Additionally, he and NREL have a history.

"Actually, a year or two ago I reached out to NREL researcher Jason Woods," he said. "I've been very interested in NREL's goals and how they align with my research. But there's nothing like getting firsthand experience."

With his mentors Willy Bernal Heredia and Omkar Ghatpande, Premer is exploring laboratory validation of affordable and equitable residential electrification under electrical panel and service constraints. This project aims to help residents of a building electrify their appliances and heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning systems without having to upgrade the electrical panel, which can be costly. Creating a smarter home can help limit power use during peak times and prevent the breaker panel from flipping because of extraneous loads.

"I'm very impressed with the quality and quantity of Levi's work," Bernal Heredia said. "I was very surprised to find out that he's very good at communicating and diligent at his work, and that he's been making sure we stay on track. For me, I think sometimes as a researcher I'm working on multiple projects and can get stuck. Levi comes with all this energy, enthusiasm, and a really good work ethic. He makes sure all the tasks will get done properly and accurately and keeps us on our toes."

Premer is entering the first year of his doctoral program at Purdue University. Although that will be his focus for the foreseeable future, he hopes he can continue to collaborate and participate in joint projects with NREL. Ultimately, Premer can see himself as a future staff member at NREL. "I've been very impressed with everyone's aptitude and passion to try and make an impact in this world with good technological outcomes," he said of his experience. "NREL, hopefully I'll see you later."

JUMP Into STEM Returns to NREL in 2024-2025

The 2024-2025 JUMP into STEM competition is kicking off this fall, with the Final Competition returning to NREL Jan. 30-31, 2025. The competition is open to teams of two to four students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities. Mixed-major teams are highly encouraged. These are teams consisting of students researching different fields related to the building industry (e.g., architecture, engineering, public policy, computer science, economics, and more).

The competition is judged in two rounds:

• Fall semester challenges: Student teams select one of this year's challenge topics and respond with a written solution. Challenge-level winners are selected from each of the three challenges. Challenge winners are awarded one-on-one mentorship opportunities.
• JUMP into STEM Final Competition: Eligible challenge-level winners are invited to compete against each other in person at the Final Competition, which will be held at NREL on Jan. 30-31, 2025. Final Competition winners are offered a 10-week paid summer internship at NREL, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, or Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

2024-2025 Challenge Topics

No Peaking! Managing Peak Power Demand in Buildings

The objective of this challenge is to reduce peak power demand (load) in U.S. buildings (residential, commercial, new, or existing) by focusing on their thermal loads and/or heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning systems. Innovative solutions should lead to significant reductions in carbon emissions while being accessible to low- and moderate-income communities.

Taking Comfort to the Extreme

This challenge asks students to develop energy-efficient and affordable technologies that tackle the issues of decarbonization and resilience in extreme climates and/or communities affected by extreme weather events. Teams should first build out a focused problem statement for a specific stakeholder group (i.e., climatic zone) and then develop a technical solution that meets the needs of the population.

Building Affordability

The objective of this challenge is to improve the building envelope performance of new or existing residential buildings by reducing energy consumption in a cost-effective and accessible way.

JUMP into STEM Challenge submissions are due Nov. 8, 2024.

Learn more about Jump into STEM.