The intern program is funded as part of a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation.

Last summer, interns at SCEC — a national research center composed of 14 core institutions, based in the USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences — developed a method of capturing earthquake images on a computer screen that can be downloaded by a TV station to illustrate what happens when a temblor strikes.

Traveling along the fault — above and below ground — the digitized movie shows viewers the earthquake’s potential impact on land, buildings, bridges and nearby cities.

By developing their own computer code with free, widely available software, the students were able to produce the “live” images in less than an hour — a big advantage for media and others during a disaster.

SCEC Director Thomas Jordan says he has never seen anything like it.

“A lot of people said it was impossible, and to my knowledge, it’s the first time an earthquake has been captured by a computer in this way,” he said. “It illustrates the kind of sophisticated projects the interns attack each summer.”

The intern program is funded as part of a $10 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation for earthquake information technology research.

In its second year, the EIT intern program has guided some 20 undergraduates through complicated projects involving information technology and earthquake science.

Each term, interns and graduate mentors interact with top researchers, including SCEC scientists from USC, Harvard, Caltech and the U.S. Geological Survey.

“These interns are at the center of earthquake research and working on extremely sophisticated problems with the best in the field,” Jordan said. “They are learning how to use advanced technology in a way they would never learn in a typical classroom.”

“Sometimes I get a little envious,” said Sue Perry, director of the EIT intern program. “It would really have been fabulous to have experienced this as an undergraduate.”

Along with workshops, symposia, field trips and mentoring, students gain invaluable experience in teamwork and collaboration.

Brandee Pierce is a fifth-year pre-law student majoring in philosophy. She was attracted to the program’s emphasis on visually capturing a natural phenomenon.

“The program is a challenging, technologically and academically aggressive session that engages students not only to go beyond themselves, but also to go beyond current technology and science,” she said.

Jed Link, a 2002 summer intern, was a USC communications major who is now a graduate student in rhetoric at California State University, Northridge.

He returned to work for SCEC this past summer. Neither Link nor Pierce had any experience in computer science or earth science before their SCEC internships.

Jeremy Zechar was a senior in computer science when he became an intern. By his own admission, he couldn’t tell a fault from an earthquake, but now he is a graduate student in geophysics, working with Jordan.

Each summer, the interns are challenged to accomplish a large-scale innovative research project in 10 weeks. They then present their work at the SCEC annual meeting, which completes the summer program.

Throughout the school year, the program continues with part-time internships and other less-ambitious challenges geared toward school-year schedules.

This past summer, the challenge was to create 3D3- visuals of Southern California’s faults, earthquakes and surface features.

“Earth science is becoming a more advanced science in terms of using high technology,” Jordan said. “The experiences these interns get will equip them for a wide range of opportunities in fields other than earthquake science.

“The increasing intersection of information technology and the natural sciences,” he said, “will demand the kind of skills these students are gaining.”