STJR Students Back at Texas A&M After Internships
From editing technical documents about innovative devices to writing press releases about medical studies and features about the latest space research, STJR students doing internships had a productive and exciting summer.
Iveliz Martel: Medical Writing at Johns Hopkins
Iveliz Martel spent the summer working with Johns Hopkins Medicine, a major health care institution in Baltimore, Maryland. During her internship, Iveliz helped science writers and video producers to write press releases and pitch stories to media outlets in the United States and Latin America.
She said she enjoyed working with people like Joann Rodgers, author of a chapter in A Field Guide for Science Writers, which Iveliz read in one of her STJR classes. “Seeing how Joann edited my press releases helped me tremendously to see how scientific topics can be communicated in a clear and concise way,” Iveliz said.
One of the press releases Iveliz wrote is already published online, and others will be released later in the fall. Iveliz, who entered the STJR program in fall 2014 as a Fulbright grantee from Chile, previously worked as a reporter and media producer for Chilean radio station Radio Cooperativa.
Roberto Molar: Science Writing at NASA
Just a few miles south of Iveliz, Roberto Molar Candanosa wrote news and features for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland.
He is proudest of his Jupiter Great Read Spot story, which media outlets like Astronomy magazine, EarthSky, Space.com, AOL, MSN, and ABC picked up.
Roberto loved working with talented NASA science writers, who helped him improve his skills in conveying complex material with engaging and clear language. He feels glad to have met outstanding scientists, like Goddard cosmologist John Mather, who won a Nobel Prize for his work shedding light on the origins of the universe.
Roberto said working at NASA left him with an admiration for the stars and a desire to tell others why they always should look up. He did a previous internship in summer 2014 in the Scientific Publications department of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and he plans to complete his thesis and graduate in 2016.
Claire Ronner: Technical Writing at National Instruments
Farther south and west from Iveliz and Roberto, Claire Ronner did her internship in Austin, Texas. She worked at National Instruments, a company that develops technology for industries including healthcare, electronics, and particle physics. Claire wrote and edited user guides, product specifications, and compliance documents.
Claire’s STJR background proved useful in her internship, especially because the documents she worked with involved putting complex instructions into approachable language for users. “Much of what I wrote used many of the core principles we learned in STJR: writing clearly and concisely and directly stating the information you’re trying to convey,” she said.
Claire’s internship has led to a full-time job with National Instruments, and she is happy to return there as she completes her master’s in fall 2015. Claire, who has a bachelor’s in journalism from Indiana University, began her STJR studies while working as an information specialist for the Texas Department of Transportation and entered the STJR program fulltime in fall 2014.
