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Suzanne Wheeler of Port Neches, a senior physics major and McNair scholar at ËÄ»¢Ó°ÊÓ, traveled with her McNair research advisor, James Drachenberg, assistant professor of physics, to Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in Long Island, New York, for the STAR Collaboration Meeting. 

STAR is a BNL-based high-energy nuclear physics experiment composed of 61 institutions from 13 countries, with 612 collaborators. Drachenberg serves as co-convener of the STAR Spin Physics Working Group and helped to organize the meeting, chair plenary and parallel sessions, and present a working group summary talk in the final plenary session.

Wheeler is the first Lamar student to receive a guest appointment at BNL and was sponsored by the spokesperson for the STAR collaboration. She was one of the only undergraduates participating in the meeting. Drachenberg provided her a tour of the STAR experimental hall and visits to two historic scientific sites on Long Island: Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe laboratory in Shoreham and Albert Einstein's summering cottage in Cutchogue.