This award supports the activities of a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site hosted by the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University. This award enables approximately six to eight undergraduate students to perform astronomical research with professional scientists at Penn State during the summer months. Under the direction of Drs. Lawrence W. Ramsey and Margaret M. Chester, students will do research on a variety of topics in astronomy, and will have access to telescope facilities, image processing laboratories, and optical and space instrument laboratories. Supplementing their research, students will attend a weekly seminar series in which faculty will discuss introductory astronomy material and students will be able to present the results of their own work later in the summer. REU sites such as the one planned at Pennsylvania State University are important in increasing the technical and scientific skills of the Nation's most talented and motivated undergraduates, and in enabling those students to experience state-of-the-art scientific research before they make their final career decisions.
