In the past several weeks, I have been challenged by both technical and personal difficulties. As a research intern working in the lab, there were many days where it seemed that the procedure would never work or even worse provide for null results. In these times, I found myself desperate for answers and solutions to my problems. Moreover, being away from home and in an entirely different environment made it difficult to reach out to other collaborators and peers at the University of New Hampshire. Had it not been for my two mentors, Dr. Guo and Dr. Ashline, the summer would had been an extremely difficult one, but their guidance helped keep me motivated and focused on my research. We spent many hours discussing the fundamentals and performing the techniques necessary to succeed in the lab. During the summer, we had an instrument failure that caused the instrument to stop responding to inputs. It required us to take apart the internals of the Ion-Trap where we spent many hours carefully diagnosing it. After many lessons about the hardware that governs the instrument, we were finally able to find the part that was faulty, and we replaced it. It was in this time working side by side with them that I gained the confidence to succeed in the laboratory. This internship gave me the rare opportunity to learn and grow from a research intern to a scientist capable of tackling the important questions of chemistry. For this opportunity, I am most thankful!

Nolan McLaughlin
Neuroscience