From summer research program to PhD dissertation
One of the most important aspects of MIT’s educational mission is preparing students to be effective members of their scientific and technological communities. For Raspberry Simpson, that process began when she was a 17-year-old participant in the MIT Summer Research Program (MSRP); it is reaching fruition today as she pursues her doctorate in nuclear science and develops novel diagnostics for inertial confinement fusion and high-energy-density physics experiments at some of the country’s most advanced research facilities. In 2010, Simpson (then a student in Bard College’s Early College program) worked with MIT physics professors Lindley Winslow and Janet Conrad at the Laboratory for Nuclear Science. In addition to their academic work in the MSRP, she recalls, “they put it into my mind subconsciously that MIT was a place for me, that I could do science and be accepted in this space. I can’t emphasize enough how important that is.” Shortly afterward, Simpson transferred...