Students, Young Scholars Contribute to the EPP
The Einstein Papers Project has a long history of working with students and recent graduates of Caltech, as well as other universities. They're always listed, and sometimes pictured, on our Who We Are page. Once they've moved on to bigger and better things, we continue to acknowledge their work with us on the Past Editors & Staff page.
As in-office work and collaborations have steadily increased, since the pandemic related shutdowns, we've been very happy to have the continued support and engagement of Caltech senior Neymika Jain. An Applied + Computational Mathematics major, Neymika has worked with the project since the summer of 2021 with a break in 2022 to dedicate time to a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship with the Stuart lab group.
Recent Caltech alumni Rosita Fu (Chemistry '22) and Liam Silvera (Biology '22) began working with us after graduation this summer. They are using their skills in computation and image processing towards ongoing research led by EPP editors, Diana Kormos Buchwald and Tilman Sauer. The project involves manuscript analysis of thousands of undated Einstein calculations made as he worked on his concept of Unified Field Theory.
There's a certain awe one can feel working with historical manuscripts, especially those of larger than life figures like Einstein. When asked what she found interesting about working at the EPP, Neymika replied "It's interesting how much evidence of the life you live is recorded. For example, with Einstein, the fact that there is so much information about him that continues to exist, not just from his notes, but also from his letters, his talks, his will, etc; it's mind-blowing." Another facet to the experience of working with historical documents would be how Liam expressed it: "it's quite surreal working with his original manuscripts and scratch paper (or at least scans of them)." In a similar vein, Rosita said "when I interact with the documents, it's very humbling to see all the transcription work from past students and researchers."
This is the type of engagement we're excited to share with students who join us for short and long stints at the project. We're pretty sure that all agree with Rosita's comment: "At the EPP, the people are welcoming and one never goes hungry with the great snacks available :-)"