...and today.

Levin in the late 1980s...

Growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s and ’60s, I had interests in two areas that ultimately had major impacts on my education and career. The first was science—especially nuclear physics—and the second was science fiction.

One early influence was undoubtedly Disney’s short film “Our Friend the Atom.” I don’t recall exactly when or where I saw it, but I clearly remember the demonstration of a chain reaction with mousetraps and ping pong balls. It looked like an exciting area about which to learn.

I also had a shelf full of Tom Swift Jr. sci-fi/adventure books, and around the fourth grade I discovered Robert Heinlein—specifically, his book Have Space Suit, Will Travel. Kip Russell, the teenage hero of the book, is abducted by hostile space aliens but manages to escape and, with the help of a friendly alien, saves Earth from destruction. At the end, having returned to Earth, Kip prepares to go off to college at MIT. With the assistance of my trusty World Book Encyclopedia, I researched MIT and decided—rather audaciously at the age of 10—that I would go there, too.

This summer, the American Nuclear Society supported two student members who participated in the Washington Internships for Students of Engineering (WISE) Program, a nine-week program that gives engineering and technology students the chance to spend a summer learning about public policy. This year’s ANS-sponsored WISE interns, Sarah Cole of Boise State University and Abbey Hageman of the University of Nevada–Reno, arrived in Washington, D.C., in May, where during the course of the program they made professional contacts, researched and presented policy papers (published in the WISE Journal of Engineering and Public Policy), and learned how government officials make decisions on complex technological issues—and how engineers contribute to this process.