Thanks to the generous support of the DiRAC Advisory Board, and the local UW Astronomy community, the Student Research Prize Program was successfully wrapped up for 2023 this August!
Now in its second year, this prize supports undergraduate research in astronomy at the University of Washington, providing students a stipend to focus on their independent research projects under the supervision of UW faculty and scientists. Previous winners of this prize have presented at local and national research conferences, contributed to peer-reviewed publications, and continued on to graduate school. Our summer program has also been featured in the UW College of Arts and Sciences’ Newsletter.
This year we are excited to award 5 summer prizes, including students across a wide range of astronomy and astrophysics research topics:
- Katelyn Ebert (Advisor: Prof. Matt McQuinn): Precision Measurement of the Hubble Constant with Fast Radio Bursts
- John Delker (Advisor: Prof. Andy Connolly): Classifying Transients with ParSNIP
- Celeste Hagee (Advisors: Andy Tzanidakis and Prof. James Davenport): Building a Data-Driven Calibration Model for the Gaia BP/RP Epochal Spectra Using Supernovae
- Bowang Lan (Advisors: Jake Kurlander and Prof. Mario Juric): Investigations with HelioLinC
- Benjamin Herrera (Advisor: Prof. Sarah Tuttle): MARVIN Optimization for Generalized IFU Use
Thank you to the generous community that supports truly excellent student research at the University of Washington, especially our principle donors David Brooks and Jeff Glickman. You are helping the next generation of scholars to build the most advanced datasets, algorithms, and tools to explore and understand the universe!