ISU engineering student selected to attend prestigious internship in Washington, D.C. this summer

Idaho State University engineering student Brian Andersen has been selected to attend a nine-week Washington Internship for Students of Engineering (WISE) program in Washington, D.C.

Andersen’s internship is sponsored by the American Nuclear Society.

“I am quite honored to have been selected for this internship. I honestly was not expecting to be selected, so I was quite surprised and excited to find the email in my inbox telling me I had been chosen for the internship,” Andersen said.

The WISE program is ranked as one of the most prestigious internships opportunities in the country. During the internship students learn about the public policy process, how the government makes decisions on technological issues and how engineers can contribute to them.

Also, WISE students work with a faculty-member-in-residence who creates a schedule of meetings, field trips, and events where the WISE interns interact with leaders in the U.S. Congress, the Administration and federal agencies, industry, and prominent non-governmental organizations.

“I was very pleased when Brian notified me that he had been selected for this prestigious internship, one of only two nuclear engineering students in the nation to be so selected,” said George Imel, ISU engineering professor. “It speaks well for our nuclear engineering program at ISU that we can place a student in this position, it speaks well for all the faculty and students in the program, but most of all it speaks well for Brian. We are very proud of him.”

After graduating from ISU, Andersen said he plans to work in the nuclear industry for a while before attending graduate school to become a reactor physicist.

“I know that I will gain a lot of valuable experience from this internship. I am also looking forward to meeting so many people that are well known and influential in their respective fields,” aAndersen said.

Founded in 1980 through the collaborative efforts of several professional engineering societies, the WISE societies select outstanding third- or fourth-year engineering/computer science students, or students in engineering/computer science graduate programs, from a nation-wide pool of applicants.