At the end of August, we were treated to wrap-up presentations by the four Summer Research Prize recipients. Now in its third year, the Summer Research Prize is awarded to support new and ongoing undergraduate research projects, and help students work closely with their mentors at the University of Washington. This prize is made possible through the generous support of our community, faculty, and friends, and has been featured in the UW College of Arts and Sciences’ Newsletter.

Our 2024 prize winners included:

• Sophia Watts (Advisors Yakov Faerman, Matt McQuinn) Investigating intergalactic filaments and sheets
• Maggie Vickers (Advisor: Bruce Balick) Examining Density Tracers in Low-Ionization structures in Planetary Nebula
• Giovanni Gollotti (Advisors: Andy Tzanidakis, Tobin Wainer) A New Candidate Triplet Binary System in the Beta-Pic Moving Group: HIP 23309
• Felix Knowlton (Advisors: Jake Kurlander, Mario Jurić) High-Fidelity HelioLinC Stress-Testing for LSST Preparedness

I find it especially exciting how these projects span almost the entire range of astronomy and astrophysics work happening at UW, from simulations of baby galaxies from Sophia, to the remnants dying stars from Maggie – from current mysteries of an unusual binary star system from Giovanni, to developing the code to rapidly find the most unusual asteroids in future surveys from Felix. UW Astronomy and DiRAC are host to a wide range of discovery and innovation, and each year the Summer Research Prize shows just a tiny piece of this great work.

Thank you to the generous community that enables truly stellar student research at the University of Washington, especially our principal donor again this year, DiRAC Advisory Board member David Brooks. You are helping the next generation of scholars to build the most advanced datasets, algorithms, and tools to explore and understand the universe!

I invite you all to join us again next year for more student-driven discovery!

-James Davenport, Associate Director of DiRAC