Are you an undergraduate student looking for a Summer research experience at one of the world’s leading radio observatories? Then apply for the GBO/NRAO Summer Student Research Assistantship and select Green Bank as a preferred site on your application!
Applications for Summer 2024 are OPEN, and they are due on February 1, 2024.
The Overall NRAO Program
The Green Bank Summer Student Program is one of three sites for the GBO/NRAO Summer Student Research Assistantships. To apply to be a GBO summer student, you must apply through their portal and select Green Bank as one of your preferred sites. The other two sites are at the NRAO headquarters in Charlottesville, VA and at the Very Large Array (VLA) in Socorro, NM.
All GBO/NRAO Summer students (including those in Charlottesville and Socorro) will spend one week in Green Bank for a Summer Student Bootcamp at the beginning of the Summer. In this program, students get to meet their peers from the other sites, learn the foundations of radio astronomy, tour the GBO facilities, and take data with some of our telescopes. Later in the summer, GBO students will take a weekend trip to the NRAO headquarters in Charlottesville.
The GBO Site
Green Bank Summer students typically do their day-to-day research from the Jansky Lab on site, home to most of our scientific, software, and engineering offices. The nature of said research will depend on the project, but we will provide frequent workshops, talks, and check-ins to ensure that everyone has the skills and support they need.
The Green Bank Summer research program has two primary funding sources: The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program and GBO’s Physicists Inspiring the Next Generation (PING) program. Students admitted to GBO for PING will have the same experience as the GBO REU students except that for 2 weeks of the summer, they will pause their research activities to do full-time mentoring for the PING attendees (rising 9th graders). You will indicate on your application if you would like to be considered for a PING-funded position.
More information about the Green Bank program can be found on our site-specific page of the NRAO website.
Internet
Green Bank is situated in two radio quiet zones which minimize Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) for our telescopes. Although this means we don’t have cell service or WiFi, people here can still connect to the internet! If you come here, you’ll just need to bring Ethernet adapters so your devices can connect to our wired internet. We also get GPS signals, so you can use Google Maps provided you load the route beforehand.
Housing
Summer students live together in a large house about a mile away from the observatory. There are typically 2 students per room. The house is equipped with Ethernet, landline phones, and a kitchen complete with dishes and cooking utensils.
Driving
The student house is within walking distance of both the observatory and a small grocery store. However, having access to a car becomes a necessity for traveling anywhere else. We will provide transportation to and from the airport, but beyond that, day-to-day transportation is up to the students. Typically, a few students drive to Green Bank instead of flying and will use their car to carpool to work, the grocery store, etc. Most staff members would also be happy to help if asked, so you’ll be just fine if you don’t have a car here.
We cannot provide a list of available projects in advance. In your personal statements, we encourage you to tell us what general work at GBO interests you. You are welcome to identify individual GBO staff members you would like to work with, but we cannot guarantee any particular person’s participation at this time.
2023
All 2023 GBO/NRAO Summer Student projects can be found here.
Student | Mentor(s) | Topic | Final Report |
---|---|---|---|
Vincent Andrews | Jim Jackson | Star-Forming Clouds | – |
Samuel Barton | Victoria Catlett & Kasey Purcell | Characterizing Local RFI Sources in GBT Data | – |
Charles Burton | Larry Morgan & Natalie Butterfield (NRAO) | Examining Galactic Bar Dust Lanes in the Milky Way | – |
Lauren Dyzarz | Anika Schmiedeke | Gas Kinematics of Young Star-Forming Regions | – |
Suzanne Eisenberg | Victoria Catlett & Kasey Purcell | Characterizing Local RFI Sources in GBT Data | – |
Mary Rickel | Emily Moravec | Investigating Radio-AGN in Merging Galaxy Clusters | – |
Lukas Summers | Steve White & Jason Ray | GBT IF Bandwidth Expansion | – |
Mahpara Tasnim | Pedro Salas | The GBT L-band Drift Scan Survey | – |
Kasey Wei | Thomas Chamberlin | Interactive Dashboard for GBT Archive Data | – |
2022
All 2022 GBO/NRAO Summer Student projects can be found here.
Student | Mentor | Topic | Final Report |
---|---|---|---|
Amara Green | Walter Klahold | Solar Energy Science Center Exhibit | – |
Corvus Koithan | Pedro Salas | Looking for the Largest Bound Atoms in Space | Report |
Elizabeth Lowe | Thomas Chamberlin | Interactive Dashboard of Green Bank Telescope Antenna Data | Report |
Hugo Negrel | Will Armentrout | Detecting Distant Star-Forming Regions in the Galactic Warp | – |
Mary Rickel | Emily Moravec | Radio-Loud Active Galactic Nuclei Activity in Merging and Non-Merging Galaxy Cluster | Report |
Alex Seidman | Kasey Purcell | Adding Relevant Annotations to the Green Bank Telescope’s Radio Frequency Interference Graphics User Interface | Report |
Nathan Sparks | Chris De Pree & Will Armentrout | The Impact of Satellite Constellations on Radio Telescopes: GBT | Report |
Lucy Steffes | Jesse Bublitz | Mapping Neutral Carbon Across the Outer Layers of the Helix Nebula with the Atacama Compact Array | Report |
Catalina Zamora | Anika Schmiedeke | Neutral vs Ion Line Widths in the prestellar core L1544 | Report |
2021
All 2021 NRAO Summer Student projects can be found here.
Student | Mentor | Topic | Final Report |
---|---|---|---|
Rob Coleman | Will Armentrout | Population Synthesis Modeling of the Milky Way’s HII Regions | – |
Claire Cook | Tapasi Ghosh & Chris Salter | HI Detection in High-Z, Type 2 Quasars | Report |
Claire Finley | Larry Morgan | Star Formation in Bright-Rimmed Cloud SFO 14 | Report |
Daniel Hancock | Charles Romero | Pressure Profiles from Improved Noise Quantification | Report |
Laura Leyzorek | Carla Beaudet & Jason Ray | Design of RFI Enclosures for RF-Noisy Electronics | Report |
Rebekah Polen | Pedro Salas | Tracing the CO-dark Molecular Gas Toward Cassiopeia A | Report |
Julian Ramos | Charles Romero | Correlations between Weather Variable and Recorded Data | Report |
Lucy Steffes | Jesse Bublitz | The Chemical Composition of the Helix Nebula Globules | Report |
2020
All 2020 NRAO Summer Student projects can be found here.
Student | Mentor | Topic | Final Report |
---|---|---|---|
Lulu Agazie | Ryan Lynch | Planning Next-Gen GBT Pulsar Surveys | Report |
Savannah Cary | Jay Lockman | Identifying and Simulating Hydrogen in the Galactic Center Outflow | Report |
Genna Crom | Natalie Butterfield | Measuring Gas Temperatures in the ‘Sticks’ Cloud | Report |
Maile Harris | Steve White | Modeling Quartz Window Efficiency for an Ultra-wideband Receiver for the GBT | Report |
Isabel Hunt | Nathaniel Sizemore | CLEO to pyCLEO: Software for GBT Astronomers and Engineers | Report |
Alex Johnson | Will Armentrout | Locating Massive Stars in the Outer Milky Way | Report |
Daniel Johnson | Hanna Sizemore | Refactoring and Expanding Matlab Mars Ice Modeling Software | Report |
Laura Leyzorek | Ramon Creager | General GBT Monitoring System | – |
Max Mason | Pedro Salas | Surface Scan Masking with LASSI | Report |
Efrain Rodriguez-Arzaga | Ryan Lynch | Exploring New RFI Excision Techniques | Report |
Olivia Young | Andrew Seymour | Ranking Pulsar Plots using Coherence Measures | Report |
Please direct your questions about the overall GBO/NRAO program to ude.o1733629952arn@s1733629952tnedu1733629952tss1733629952. Questions specific to the GBO site may go to Will Armentrout at ude.o1733629952arn@r1733629952tnemr1733629952aw1733629952.