It’s not surprising that LLNL intern Tiffany Nguyen sees her parents as role models.
Her father and mother instilled a love of science and a passion for education in their daughter. And both parents passed on a strong sense of determination and inner strength forged from enduring extraordinary hardships.
Nguyen’s parents were among the hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled Vietnam separately by boats and ships after the Vietnam War ended in 1975, part of a global migration and humanitarian crisis.
After spending time in a refugee camp in Malaysia, they resettled in New York City, where they started from scratch. Her parents met in New York, married, and moved to neighboring Westchester County, where they raised their daughter and a son.
“Their hard work ethic and their passion for education were instilled in me and that allowed me to find my path in engineering,” Nguyen said. “Their story is amazing and really inspires me to be strong and stay motivated in whatever I do.”
Nguyen, an intern in the NIF & Photon Science (NIF&PS) Directorate, is pursuing her interest in photonics. Her project is in photonics integrated circuits and she’s helping the RF (radio frequency) photonics group design compact, low-loss, and reconfigurable on-chip optical delay lines using advanced photonic engineering. The technology has the potential to replace optical fibers.
She began her internship in June as part of the NIF&PS Summer Scholar Program and is continuing in Livermore through December. She is contributing to the project’s progress and research under LLNL’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program.
Nguyen’s mentor, Ipshita Datta, praised the intern’s work.
“Tiffany is dedicated and hardworking and has made significant strides in designing simulation models and developing measurement techniques for on-chip optical delay lines,” Datta said.
Nguyen received her B.S. in physics at Fordham University and her M.S. in electrical engineering at Columbia University, both in New York City. She’s considering graduate school and receiving her Ph.D.
Nguyen’s father and mother were science majors as undergraduate students (Nguyen followed her father as an undergraduate at Fordham University.). Her mother went on to become a math teacher and her father became an electrical engineer.
“Growing up, I was always interested in every science,” Nguyen said. “From cell biology to mechanics to physics, I always had opportunities to immerse myself in many different sciences. I gravitated toward optics or nonlinear optics as I began to specialize in electrical engineering. The way photons interact with materials is so interesting to me and the fact that we can study those effects to better our current technologies is something I’m very passionate about.”
Nguyen also credited “amazing mentors that helped me discover what I truly wanted to do by allowing me to immerse myself in their fields at office hours and seminars.”
She singled out her undergrad mentor, Professor Stephen Holler at Fordham, as another key figure in her life, for “allowing me to discover so many topics in nonlinear optics, which I am still interested in today.”
At Columbia, she chose to concentrate on light-wave physics and became interested in photonics, the focus of her Lab project.
Nguyen became interested in the research at national laboratories because many of her professors have worked at national labs, including Lawrence Berkeley, Sandia, and Los Alamos.
“They all spoke highly of doing research at national labs and that sparked an interest in me,” she said. “I looked into multiple national labs, but I found that LLNL was the place for me because of the NIF&PS Summer Scholar Program and its mentorship program. I not only wanted to concentrate on growing my research skills in photonics, but I wanted to learn about different research topics and challenges in LLNL that are offered in the summer program.
“I was specifically drawn to NIF&PS for the work done in optics and I wanted to be part of this program’s rich history and learn from the scientists and engineers involved in the amazing work done here at NIF,” she continued.
Nguyen praised the Lab’s culture.
“The community here at the Lab is amazing,” she said. “Everyone who I have met has been so kind and welcoming and always happy to answer my questions. I’m from New York, so this is all a new experience for me. I have been exploring the Bay Area in my free time and it is so beautiful and different from New York City.”
In her spare time, Nguyen enjoys running and hiking. She also likes reading books on ethics and human nature.
More Information:
Summer Scholar Internship Program
“Circuits of Interest Led Engineering Intern to NIF&PS,” NIF & Photon Science News, Oct. 15, 2024
“Ignition Continues to Spark Interest in NIF&PS Intern Program,” NIF & Photon Science News, Oct. 2, 2024
“LLNL Intern Applies Lessons Learned from Home, Family,” NIF & Photon Science News, Sept. 4, 2024
“NIF&PS Summer Scholar Program Celebrates a Record Year,” NIF & Photon Science News, August 23, 2023
“Intern Follows His Lifelong Passion for Science to LLNL,” NIF & Photon Science News, August 23, 2023
“NIF&PS Summer Scholar Wants to Be an Inspiration to Other Students,” NIF & Photon Science News, August 23, 2023
“A Passion for Physics Drives NIF Summer Intern Danny Attiyah,” NIF & Photon Science News, August 9, 2023
“Summer Intern Learns at Intersection of Chemistry and Optical Fiber,” NIF & Photon Science News, July 26, 2023
“LLNL Advances Make NIF Summer Scholar Program a Coveted Internship,” NIF & Photon Science News, Feb. 2, 2023
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