The project will support a Research Experience for Undergraduates Site at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, which hosts the world's largest single-aperture radio telescope. Nine undergraduates and one high-school teacher per year will perform research in two principal areas: radio astronomy, and space and atmospheric sciences. Through a wide variety of research projects, students will be exposed to topics that include pulsars, extragalactic astronomy, near-earth asteroids, the Earth's atmosphere and ionosphere, as well as gravitational waves. The will also educate its participants in cutting-edge topics and techniques through an extensive program of lectures, workshops, and site tours.
The Site will recruit from both Puerto Rico and the rest of the United States. A substantial number of its participants will be from Puerto Rico, which represents a minority community that is underrepresented in STEM fields. Numerous formal and informal cultural activities will further engender a spirit of collaboration between students from a wide variety of backgrounds. Finally, the project will strengthen the partnership between the Arecibo Observatory and the Jicamarca Radio Observatory (JRO) in Peru by sending two students to perform summer research at JRO.
This project is jointly funded by the Division of Astronomical Sciences, the Office of the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and the Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences.
