South Dakota Mines senior physics major Tristen Olsson was awarded a
fellowship in the prestigious U.S. Department of Energy and National Institute for
Nuclear Physics - Italy Summer Exchange Program.
Olsson spent two months -
September and October of 2023 - in Italy assisting in astrophysics research at Sapienza University in Rome and at the Gran Sasso
National Laboratory located
100 miles east of Rome.
Gran Sasso is one of the
largest underground laboratories in the world devoted to neutrino and
astroparticle physics.
Frank Strieder, Ph.D., associate head of the South Dakota
Mines Department of Physics,
said Olsson was one of just 11 students across the United States chosen for the
fellowship. “It’s quite an accomplishment. He’s a great student,” he says of
Olsson.
Olsson, who is originally
from Spearfish, said the experience was life-changing, both for the
professional research piece and the opportunity to be immersed in another
culture.
“I was kind of on my own,
which was a new experience having gone to school so close to home,” he says. He
was required to find his own housing and manage his day-to-day activities
outside of his work at the university and lab. As someone who doesn’t speak
Italian, it was a challenge but Olsson says it was a wonderful experience he
will cherish.
As a student at South
Dakota Mines, Olsson has had the opportunity to participate in CASPAR research through the Sanford Underground Research
Facility (SURF) in Lead.
CASPAR, which stands for Compact Accelerator System for Performing
Astrophysical Research, is a low-energy particle accelerator that allows
researchers to study processes that occur inside stars. SURF is the
deepest underground laboratory in the United States and among the deepest in
the world. Nearly a mile underground, SURF is home to experiments in physics,
biology, geology and engineering.
In Italy, Olsson
participated in research that is the “sister experiment to CASPAR” happening at
the Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics (LUNA) at Gran Sasso National Laboratory.
CASPAR and LUNA are two of
only three deep underground accelerators in the world studying stellar
environments. LUNA has been in existence for 25 years, and Strieder, who is a
principal investigator for CASPAR, previously worked on LUNA for 22 years.
Olsson spent time at both
the Sapenzia University and the underground lab, assisting with data collection
and analysis. “My time in the lab was my favorite part of the whole thing,” he
says. “The mountains (where the lab was located) were beautiful, the physics
facilities amazing and even the food in the lab was good.”
Olsson, who will graduate
in May from Mines, is currently applying for graduate programs at universities
in the United States. He hopes to have a career in physics research someday.
“Astrophysics research is kind of my dream career,” he says.
He also hopes to return to
Europe someday, either in a professional capacity or as a visitor. “I’d love to
go back to Italy and Europe,” he says. “And I’d have no qualms about doing
physics in Europe or elsewhere.”