Imagination, quite literally, made Lindsey Hessler a Vol before she even started high school. Now a UT senior, she has won an assistantship from Jefferson Lab to support her research in nuclear physics.

It’s the Small Things in Life

Hessler said her interest in physics came about because she is “incredibly fascinated by the intricacies of the universe and understanding how the small things in life work.”

During COVID she spent hours on YouTube watching videos about stars, galaxies, energy—anything explaining the building blocks of our world and universe.

For nearly a year she’s been working with Professor Nadia Fomin and Assistant Professor Dien Nguyen as part of the nuclear physics research group. She was one of the department’s 2024 Summer Research Fellows and learned in August she had won a Jefferson Science Associates Minority/Female Undergraduate Research Assistantship.

The program supports minority or female undergraduates working on projects that are part of the Jefferson Lab research program or are directly related its scientific or engineering aspects. Situated in Virginia, this United States Department of Energy facility is a leader in accelerator science, dedicated to probing the particles and forces that comprise and govern the matter that makes up our world. With this award, Hessler will contribute to the lab’s scientific mission.

“This assistantship will cover a variety of projects,” she explained. “I will be working to collect data with a Helium-3 Polarization apparatus as well as developing a projection of runtime for upcoming experiments at CEBAF (the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility).”

Her physics studies are driven by a creative and curious worldview that began when she was still in middle school and ultimately brought her to Knoxville.

Solving Problems in the Lab and Industry

Hessler is from Germantown, Wisconsin, but early on her college die was cast in Tennessee orange.

“I chose UT because as a kid I was involved in a competition/club called Destination Imagination (DI),” she said. “The Global Finals were held at UT after the college semester ended, so I spent a week in the dorms at age 12 and fell in love with the campus, ambience, and culture in Knoxville. Ever since then I was determined to be a Volunteer.”

She explained that she began her UT studies as a management major but quickly discovered she had a knack for science.

“At this point I had a decent amount of business classes completed (so) I decided to add physics as a second major,” Hessler said. “I have loved learning two very different studies and have found that both educational paths teach me how to work through problems (and life) in very different but beneficial ways.”

Despite the demands of a double major in business administration (management) and physics, she’s on track academically and said that “ideally (she) will be graduating next December holding a diploma from the Haslam College of Business and UT’s College of Arts and Sciences.”

Her plans include going on to graduate school with a focus on nuclear physics, using the full advantage of her combined majors to design her career.

“I would love to work in the energy and/or defense industry and apply my physics degree as well as my BS in management to project management and operations,” she said.

From her first days as an imaginative kid visiting campus, Hessler has followed her passion and is headed for a promising next destination as a nuclear scientist.