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LSST E-News

LSST E-News

October 2008  •  Volume 1 Number 3  •  Archive

Student Labor on LSST: Summer 2008 REU and FaST Programs

Chris Culliton, Dr. Andrew Becker, Dr. Hakeem Oluseyi, Muhammad Furqan at the University of Washington program summer 2008.

Even years before first-light, LSST is able to provide opportunities to undergraduate students looking for scientific and engineering research experience. This summer LSST researchers mentored several students in the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program and through NSF supplemental funding to the LSST Design & Development award to support Faculty and Student Teams (FaST) at 3 LSST-affiliated institutions.

The FaST Program, a cooperative effort of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science and NSF, supports teams of one faculty member and two to three undergraduate students from institutions with limited research facilities and those serving underrepresented populations in science, engineering and technology (women and minorities). FaST teams typically experience hands-on research opportunities in DOE national laboratories during the summer working with scientists and engineers. This year education leads and researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), and the University of Washington (UW) submitted a collaborative proposal to the NSF through LSSTC. These funds allowed the expansion of FaST at BNL and SLAC and the extension of the existing UW PRE-Map program through the summer. Our eventual goal is to increase the diversity of participants in LSST and to expand the FaST model to all other interested LSST-affiliated institutions in coming years.

At UW, Florida Institute of Technology faculty mentor Hakeem Oluseyi and students Muhammad Furquan and Chris Culliton worked with astronomer Andrew Becker to simulate the sensitivity of LSST to astrophysical variability using a light curve simulation tool.

Students at Brookhaven

Ray O’Neal, Mark Bryant and Zephra Bell at BNL. Photo courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory.

The team plans to continue working together on this analysis, extending it to other types of variability once the software is in place. Culliton expressed interest in applying to UW for graduate school. Dr. Oluseyi asked Dr. Becker to serve as an external member of student Furquan’s graduate work.

Two students from Southern University at Baton Rouge, Zephra Bell and Mark Bryant, and faculty member, Ray H. O’Neal, Jr., from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University worked with mentor Paul O’Connor at BNL to analyze the optical characteristics of the charge-coupled device for the LSST camera.

A FaST team has been selected to work at SLAC next summer; the timing of the award made it impossible to get things going this year.

Taylor Chonis taking a break from his work on LSST to visit the Grand Canyon and enjoy the southwest. “Tucson v. Nebraska… well, there’s not as much corn in Tucson!”

Taylor Chonis, a senior in the Physics and Astronomy Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln worked with LSST System Engineer Chuck Claver and Jacques Sebag in the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO)/National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) REU Program to investigate characteristics of El Peñón, future site of the LSST.

The project included a trip to Cerro Tololo for observations on the 0.9-meter telescope to calibrate for LSST.

Students will present their work at the January 2009 meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

  • Taylor Chonis, Chuck Claver, Jacques Sebag, University of Nebraska — Lincoln, LSST/NOAO: Site Characterization of El Peñón: Site of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.
  • Hakeem Oluseyi, Chris Culliton, Muhammad Furquan, Andrew Becker, Florida Institute of Technology, University of Washington: LSST Lightcurve Simulation to Quantify Variability Sensitivity.

Taylor’s interest in the engineering side of astronomy and physics fit well with the work of his mentors. “I always say that if I were to choose another major instead of physics, it would be engineering. This project was a good mix of the two fields and has reassured me that the two fields are often one in the same, especially for someone who works in instrumentation.” After graduating in December, Taylor will start working at University of Texas-Austin on the Hobby Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HEDEX) and plans to apply to graduate school in astrophysics or engineering for fall 2009.

For more information about education opportunities with LSST, please contact Suzanne Jacoby, LSST Manager for Education and Public Outreach.

 

LSST is a public-private partnership. Funding for design and development activity comes from the National Science Foundation, private gifts, grants to universities, and in-kind support at Department of Energy laboratories and other LSSTC Institutional Members:

Brookhaven National Laboratory; California Institute of Technology; Carnegie Mellon University; Chile; Columbia University; Google Inc.; Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Johns Hopkins University; Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University; Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network, Inc.; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory; National Optical Astronomy Observatory; Princeton University; Purdue University; Research Corporation; Rutgers University; Stanford Linear Accelerator Center; The Pennsylvania State University; The University of Arizona; University of California, Davis; University of California, Irvine; University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign; University of Pennsylvania; University of Pittsburgh; University of Washington

LSST E-News is a free email publication of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Project. It is for informational purposes only, and the information is subject to change without notice.

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