INL interns show off what they’ve learned

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) - The next generation of groundbreaking scientists are getting their start at Idaho National Lab.

Idaho National Lab interns spent the summer working side by side with scientists and experts in their fields of interest. They presented the results of their studies at INL's Internship Fair on Thursday.

First place went to Sophie Williams, for her design of a Cadmium waste removal system in an Electrorefiner.

She says it was an incredible experience to be on campus working on her second internship for INL.

"Being able to work with this and design something for it that's going to be implemented in the near future is pretty amazing and something that I'd really like to stay in touch with," Williams said.

More than 115 young men and women displayed posters today about the things they learned over the past few months.

Intern Spencer Christian hopes his project on coding tests for New nuclear fuels will lead to a job with nuclear-propelled rockets.

"Nuclear rockets or nuclear thermal propulsion is one of the advanced rockets that are being looked at for future manned missions to Mars," Christian said. "This is because they're a lot more efficient than traditional chemical rockets, which is what you see with Space X or what you saw with NASA in the past."

So far this year, the INL says it has hosted 511 interns from 153 universities, 42 states and 23 countries.