If a big part of advancing your career is being in the right place at the right time and meeting the right people, Emma Scherer is well on her way.
After she completes her MA in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies, Scherer hopes to work at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), focusing on nuclear safeguards, which seek to ensure countries are using nuclear material and technology for peaceful purposes.
“Any sort of internship connected to IAEA safeguards was the dream for me,” she says of the internship she participated in at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “It’s helped so much—first of all, with networking, because I know a lot of people in the field now. But also because I feel like my level of knowledge is much higher than it would have been otherwise.”
Emma Scherer appreciated the incredible access to experts that she had as an intern.
The Baltimore, Maryland, native’s practicum started with a one-week safeguards course developed collaboratively by Livermore and the Institute. Then she spent about two months working at the lab in the Bay Area.
“At Livermore, they allowed me to conduct my own research with the support of the staff there who are experts in these matters,” says Scherer. “I wrote a research paper and did a presentation on Russian cooperation with the U.S. on IAEA safeguards and how it’s evolved over time.”
Our supervisors were always ready to meet with us, as well as random experts who are not at all involved in our internship program … that was a very unique experience for me.
A typical day at her internship included attending lectures and student events, and then spending the rest of the day conducting independent research.
“I was blessed to meet with a variety of experts, physicists, political scientists, and so on,” says Scherer.
Scherer says that it’s the people who were the most interesting part of the internship.
“Hearing everybody’s takes on the current situation, especially in our fraught geopolitical climate, was fascinating. It was honestly somewhat comforting to know that there are so many smart people thinking about these things.”
A pleasant surprise was the quality time that supervisors spent with interns.
“I’ve had a lot of internships where there’s very little contact or communication between your boss and the interns—people are just so busy. But our supervisors were always ready to meet with us, and not just our supervisors, but random experts who are not at all involved in our internship program were very ready to meet with us and talk through things, so that was a very unique experience for me.”
As an IAEA Marie Curie Fellow, Scherer hopes to land an internship at IAEA.
“I feel a lot more prepared for that now, if it does happen.”
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