Tanya Ostapenko

It is a noteworthy accomplishment, but not all that unusual, for a high-achieving college math or physics major to land an internship with the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility-a U.S. Department of Energy laboratory in Newport News, Virginia, where advanced study of nuclear science takes place-in the summer before junior or senior year. It's much less common to accomplish this at the end of your first year of college, yet that's exactly what Gettysburg's Tanya Ostapenko, with a whopping two physics courses under her belt, pulled off.

Tanya chose to double major in physics and mathematics at Gettysburg for reasons that reveal keen insight and a healthy dose of self-awareness. "In physics you learn the conceptual knowledge to figure out the way the world works," says Tanya, who, when she's not unraveling the mysteries of particle physics, plays drums in the Gettysburg Marching Band. "And the math behind it is amazing. And somewhere along the line I realized that my brain works better with numbers." Her internship at J-Lab, as the accelerator facility is nicknamed, gave her an excellent opportunity to put her numerically inclined brain to the test by working alongside some of the nation's leading nuclear physicists.

In two summers at J-Lab-she returned after her sophomore year-she explored electron-positron rates, wrestled with intricate mathematical problems, presented posters to professional scientists, and even had a research paper selected as one of 15 nationwide for publication in the Department of Energy's Journal of Undergraduate Research. After junior year, she added another internship, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where she studied irradiation processes. That work has become the foundation for her senior thesis.

Why such rapid success? Tanya credits her own drive-"I'm an enthusiastic person," she says-and the outstanding faculty support she gets at Gettysburg. Classes encourage the exchange of ideas, and faculty members, while experts in their fields, regard students as intellectual colleagues. "I learn best by asking questions," says Tanya. "Small classes make that possible. And the faculty treat you like adults, and that gets you prepared for the real world."

And as she gets closer to stepping into that real world-graduate school is on her immediate horizon-she's gained greater appreciation for how far you can go with a Gettysburg education. One day at J-Lab a scientist across the hall came up to Tanya and asked her how things were at Masters Hall, which is the physics building at Gettysburg. "How do you know about Masters Hall?" Tanya asked him. "I graduated from Gettysburg in 1989," the scientist replied. "I recognized your orange and blue backpack."