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Five-College Astronomy Undergraduate Internship Program


The Five College Astronomy Department will likely offer several undergraduate research internships with department faculty, pending on the availability of the funding. The internships will last for ten weeks, and will provide a total stipend of about $4500. 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. However, you need to make your living arrangement by yourselves.

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 Feb. 15 for full consideration.

2012 Summer Internship Class:

Student                         College                 Advisor
Kelsie Krafton               UMass                  Grant Wilson
Matthew James Feller  Hampshire           Gopal Narayanan
Marie D. Calapa           UMass                   Alison Crocker
Kyle Schindler              UMass                   Min Yun
Sam Cabot                   Berkshire School    Daniel Wang
Isabel Lipartito            Smith                     James Lowenthal
Wanda Feng                 Smith                     Suzan Edwards
Jennifer Podel              Smith                     Suzan Edwards
Kim Finn                      Mt. Holyoke          Suzan Edwards

Preliminary Schedule: (June 1 -   Aug. 9)

Week
 activity
 Person setting up the video projector
6/1
 Friday: Meet your advisors
1:30PM: Introduction to Computing by  Daniel J. Popowich and Mark Fardal (6th floor computing class room), probably get trained on setuping up the video projector.
6/7
 Thursday (room 644, 3:00PM): talk by  Suzan Edwards Kelsie Krafton 
6/14
 Thursday (room 644, 3:00PM): talk by  Daniela Calzetti Matthew Feller
6/21
 Thursday (room 644, 3:00PM): talk by  Gopal Narayanan Marie Calapa
6/28
  4:00PM: Get together party (room 518)
7/5
 Thursday (room 644, 3:00PM): talk by Alison Crocker Kyle Schindler
7/12
 Thursday (room 644, 3:00PM): talk by Jennifer Andrews Sam Cabot
7/19 Thursday (room 644, 3:00PM): talk by Peter Schloerb Isabel Lipartito
7/26
Thursday (room 644, 3:00PM): talk by Min Yun
 Wanda Feng
8/2
 Thursday (room 644, 3:00PM): Presentation by students
Isabel Lipartito, Wanda Feng, Jennifer Podel, Kim Finn, Marie D. Calapa 		Jennifer Podel 
8/9
 Thursday (room 644, 3:00PM): Presentation by students
Kelsie Krafton, Matthew Feller, Kyle Schindler, Sam Cabot
4:00PM: Get together party (room 518)
Kim Finn 

2011 Summer Internship Class
2010 Summer Internship Class
2009 Summer Internship Class
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/