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Five-College Astronomy Undergraduate Internship Program


The Five College Astronomy Department offers several undergraduate research internships with department faculty. The internships will last for ten weeks, and will provide a stipend of $4000 for this summer.The summer program will include activities with other astronomy summer students and research talks by local astronomers.  Joint activities with other undergraduate summer programs at UMass are also being planned.

The Five College Astronomy Department conducts research in a wide variety of areas, including the astrophysics of stars, the interstellar medium, and galaxies. There are opportunities to work with radio, infrared, optical, ultraviolet, and X-ray data and instruments, and to carry out computer modeling, instrument development, and data analysis. More information is available online.

Eligibility: You must be enrolled at one of the Five Colleges (Amherst, Hampshire, Mt. Holyoke, Smith, or UMass) and not scheduled to graduate before the end of the year. The internships are open to astronomy majors, and majors in math and sciences who are actively considering a career in astronomy. Juniors planning to write a senior research thesis in astronomy are especially encouraged to apply. Here is a pdf copy of the application form. Applications are due by Friday, March 1st, 2009 for full consideration.


2009 Summer Internship Class:
Student                         College             Advisor
Katherine O'Toole         Smith          James D. Lowenthal/Robert A. Gutermuth
Lauren Masiunas         Smith          James Lowenthal/Rob Gutermuth
Ashley Bernis              UMass         Gopal Narayanan
Aaron Meyer               UMass          Min Yun
Charles Yergatian       UMass         Mark Meyer 
Marya Semukhina       UMass        Médéric Boquien   
Shaina Rogstad          UMass         Todd Tripp
Jessica O'Connor        UMass          Sara Salimbeni
Peter Panka                UMass          Paolo Cassata
Mary MacDonald        UMass         Grant Wilson


Preliminary Schedule: (June 1 -   Aug. 7, 2009)

Week
 activity
 Person setting up the video projector
6/1
 Monday: Meet your advisor
1:30PM: Introduction to Computing and IDL by  Daniel J. Popowich and   Mark Fardal (6th floor conference room 644), get training on setuping up the video projector.
4:00PM: Get together party (room 518)

6/5
 Friday, UMass REU barbeque at 5PM in the quad yard by Thatcher.

6/11
 Thursday (room 644, 1:30PM): organizational meeting for an outreach project; organizer: Grant Wilson Shaina Rogstad
6/18
 Thursday (room 644, 1:30PM): talk by Daniela Calzetti Jessica O'Connor
6/25
 Thursday (room 644, 1:30PM): talk by Sara Salimbeni Charles Yergatian
7/2
 outreach project review; organizer: Grant Wilson 
7/9
 Thursday (room 644, 1:30PM): talk by  James D. Lowenthal Aaron Meyer  
7/16
 Thursday (room 644, 1:30PM): talk by Bill Irvine Ashley Bernis   
7/23 Thursday (room 644, 1:30PM): talk by Robert Gutermuth
 Marya Semukhina
7/30
Thursday (room 644, 1:30PM): Presentation by students
Peter Panka 
8/6
 Thursday (room 644, 1:30PM): Presentation by students 
 Mary MacDonald


2008 Summer Internship Class

2007 Summer Internship Class

The internship program is largely funded by the van Blerkom fellowship and the Five College Astronomy Department  as well as  the Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium.

For more information, contact
Q. Daniel Wang
Director of Five-College Astronomy Undergraduate Internship Program
Astronomy Department, 619 Lederle Graduate Research Center
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA
email: wqd@astro.umass.edu
Tel.: (413)545-2131     Fax: (413)545-4223
URL: http://www.astro.umass.edu/~wqd/