Undergraduates

PARI is open to use by undergraduates who are working in groups in structured programs, or those who are doing independent research either as part of college credit or during the summer months as interns.

During the Summer 2001, Jeff Tharp, an undegraduate at the University of North Carolina-Asheville was an intern working on daytime photometry techniques directly related to the OVIEW project of seeing and transparency measurements.  Jeff enjoyed the benefits of participating in the Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy Research Experience for Undergraduates (SARA-REU) Program. Jeff Tharp’s Daytime Photometry Paper: Summer 2001 can be downloaded as a PDF file. 

Another undergraduate, also from UNC-Asheville, worked with his mentor, Randy Booker (who was on sabbatical during the Fall 2001) to map regions of star formation at 4.8 GHz using the West 26 m radio telescope. One of their maps of W49 is shown below.

 

South Carolina State University  PAIR students work on an upgrade to the PARI 4.6-m Smiley radio telescope. The PAIR program provides SCSU undergraduates with research and technology devleopment experience.  Four teams of four (three students and one professor) visit PARI several times a year. The image below shows one team measuring dimensions of the telescope feed box which they need to know for development of  a temperature controlled housing for the feed. 

In the image below,  three SCSU students are working on LabView programming to control the positioning motions of Smiley.  Their contributions equal the knowledge they gain as they work on engineering and physics problems related to Smiley’s upgrade.  At least they are still smiling!

Modified 31 Dec 2002. mwc

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