This thread is to keep a record of proposals and other ideas about how to engage undergrads in astrophysical research that utilizes Rubin data. Any ideas from the abstract to the very specific are welcomed. The general purpose is for this thread to aid faculty and staff at various undergraduate institutions in conceptualizing and carrying-out successful projects with their students.
I am not based at a college/university, but I wanted to mention that over the past few years I’ve had very good outcomes hiring (paid) undergraduate summer research interns to build/launch online citizen science projects. This seems like a natural direction to go with Rubin/LSST given Rubin’s emphasis on providing infrastructure for the community to launch Zooniverse projects based on LSST data. This type of research experience is perhaps a bit unconventional, but from what I can tell provides a combination of astronomy research, science communication, and data science experience that current undergrads find very exciting. Happy to discuss more if this is of interest. Thanks…
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Dropping this here - great funded opportunity for folks who might want to pair up with an R1 university:
Rolling deadline until Feb 1, 2024
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To elaborate a bit further on my experiences, I’ve obtained NASA Citizen Science Seed Funding (CSSFP) grants that are well-suited in scale to covering a few undergrad intern-summers of effort at my institution. Not sure if/how this particular approach could map to citizen science projects based on Rubin data, as my past successful proposals have been focused on NASA data sets.
Research project idea. Comparing stars with known parallax and spectra to observations with Rubin data. There will be an opportunity to teach students basic stellar parameters, coding skills, data analysis skills, and Rubin data access skills.