Week 1: Welcome to MITRE

Hello everyone and welcome to my first blog post!
My name is Natasha and my senior project is going to focus on chemical detection-specifically for fentanyl! As some of you may know, fentanyl overdoses have been on the rise in the united states, making it a national crisis. My project will focus on the different chemical analysis tools like, Infrared Spectroscopy or Raman spectroscopy(more to come on these methods in future blog posts!), that may be a good way to detect them in order to prevent their entry into our nation!

This week was week 1 of my internship at The MITRE Corporation where an incredible team of researchers are doing hands on work with the analysis tools I briefly mentioned above!

After being at BIM for 6 years, its easy to forget how it can feel like to start fresh at a new place, but my first week at MITRE has felt incredibly welcoming and exciting!

Starting with orientation on Monday, I set up all of my MITRE accounts and got a badge(which made me feel very official!) On Tuesday, I went to my first ever team meeting, and it was so cool to see everyone collaborating and sharing their thoughts/findings on their research! Everyone on my team(and just generally at MITRE) is so incredibly insightful(and kind!!), and I’m very excited to get to know them and their research more! Tuesday ended off with some preliminary lab training and the rest of the week consisted of catching up on some background literature and shadowing my mentors in the lab while I wait to finish up trainings!

Throughout the week I’ve honestly learned so much about chemical analysis and the exciting research happening here at MITRE, and I’m more excited than ever to learn more and contribute! This first week has been AMAZING and I can’t wait to keep you guys updated on everything to come!

Until next time,
Natasha