This grant will fund the continuation of a productive REU program led by Dr. Wood at the Florida Institute of Technology. The students in this REU program will be working with mentors and institutions that are part of the Southeast Association for Research in Astronomy (SARA), a consortium of 10 universities located primarily in the southeastern US. Ten students will participate in a 9 to 10 week program that includes a 2-hour course on scientific ethics. Over a dozen research topics are offered to the students, the topics range from solar system studies to cataclysmic variable stars and active galactic nuclei. The program also includes two-day workshops at the start and end of a ?semester? where all of the participants (both students and mentors) gather together to share experiences and review the activities of the summer. This program uses social media like Facebook, blogs, and email list servers to keep all of the participants connected and up-to-date with the program activities.
The very nature of an REU site results in a broader impact, in terms of educational activities. The program has served a range of students, some of whom go on to careers in astronomy, and some of whom find that the experience sets them on a different career path, yet one that is well served by involvement in the REU program. In this particular program all 10 of the students will use the SARA Observatory in Arizona during the course of their summer research activities. At the conclusion of the program all of the students will be required to present a talk on their research project and they will be required to publish a paper in the undergraduate research journal JSARA (www.jsara.org). The most promising students also get to travel to a professional meeting to present their results.
We report on our successful REU Site Program hosted by the Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy (SARA), a consortium of 11 universities. We hosted 10 REU interns a year from a national pool of candidates, and worked with those students on real research projects crafted to fit within the 10-week summer schedule. Intellectual Merit: Over a dozen research projects are offered each year ranging from solar system studies, to work with short- or long-period variable stars and cataclysmic variables, to target of opportunity observations of supernova remnants, active galactic nuclei, and gamma-ray burst optical counterparts. Broader Impacts: All 30 interns used the SARA Observatory in Arizona during the course of their summer research activities. At the conclusion of the summer all students present a talk on their summer research topic and prepare a paper for publication in the new undergraduate research journal JSARA (www.jsara.org). The SARA REU Summer Intern Program provides the opportunity for young scientists in training to be full participants in astronomical research, and thereby be inspired to pursue careers in science. We give the titles and authors of the JSARA papers resulting from NSF support below. Full PDF copies of the papers are available at www.jsara.org Modeling Binary Central Stars of Planetary Nebulae I: Hf 2-2• Samuel C. Schaub, Eva H. L. Bodman, and Todd C. Hillwig Modeling the Variation of X-Rays from Wolf-Rayet Stars• Michael McFall and Richard Ignace Polarization and Spectral Variability in M87 Nucleus and HST 1• Steven C. Adams, Eric S. Perlman, and Mihai Cara Modeling Binary Central Stars of Planetary Nebulae II: A Study of HaTr 4 and Sp 1 • Eva H. L. Bodman, Samuel C. Schaub, and Todd C. Hillwig Rotation Periods of Eight Main Belt Asteroids Observed in 2003- 2010 • Martha A. Leake and Dicy Ann Saylor Galaxy-Scale Clouds of Ionized Gas Around AGN • S. Drew Chojnowski and William C. Keel Variable Stars in the Globular Cluster M14 • Kyle E. Conroy, Andrew N. Darragh, Zheyu J. Liu, and Brian W. Murphy Investigating Extinction Properties of Bok Globules with the SARA 0.9-m Telescope • Andrew M. Johnson, Adria Updike, and Dieter H. Hartmann Polarimetry of Epsilon Aurigae: Initial Observations of the 2009- 2011 Eclipse • John A. C. Burdette and Gary D. Henson A Spectro-astrometric Measurement of Brackett Gamma Emission in Herbig Ae/Be Stars • Thomas S. Rice and Sean D. Brittain Standard Star System for Intermediate-Band CaH Photometry: SARA U42a and U55 Data • Laurel Farris, Chelsea Spengler, and Thomas Robertson A Standard Star System for Intermediate-Band CaH Photometry: SARA U42a and NURO Data • Chelsea Spengler, Laurel Farris, and Thomas Robertson Establishing a List of Southern Hemisphere Blazars For Micro-variability Studies • Ninos Hermis and James R. Webb: Sonification of the Light Curves of Kepler-Field SU UMa Cataclysmic Variable Stars V344 Lyr and V1504 Cyg • Roxanne M. Tutchton, Matt A. Wood, Martin D. Still, Steve B. Howell, John K. Cannizzo, and Alan P. Smale CO Emission of Herbig Ae/Be Stars • Matt L. Stevans and Sean D. Brittain New Transients as Detected by the Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor, January-June 2011 • Rebecca A. Robinson and Mark Leising A Ten-Year Photometric Study of Selected Active Galaxies • Caroline A. Roberts and Kenneth S. Rumstay Testing Cosmic Evolution of Supermassive Black Hole-Galaxy Scaling Relations in the SDSS • D. G. Brokaw New Variable Stars in the Globular Cluster NGC 6584 • Joseph M. Toddy, Elliott W. Johnson, Andrew N. Darragh, and Brian W. Murphy MV Lyrae: A Preliminary Application of Nonlinear Time-Series Analysis to a Cataclysmic Variable in the Kepler Field • Brooks E. Kinch, Matt A. Wood, Martin D. Still, Steve B. Howell, John K. Cannizzo, Alan P. Smale, and Thomas Barclay Optical Monitoring of Three Active Galactic Nuclei • Michelle A. Berg, Kyle F. Twadelle, and Daniel Batcheldor Reverberation Mapping of AGN Dusty Tori with Spitzer and IRAC • Kyle F. Twadelle, Michelle A. Berg, and Daniel Batcheldor Investigating the Faraday Rotation Morphologies of Circumstellar and Interstellar Bubbles • Nickolas M. Pingel and Richard Ignace Determining cell sizes in the Turbulent Jet of Blazar S5 0716+714 • Hannah Rafle, James R. Webb, and Gopal Bhatta Narrow-band Hα Photometry of Be Stars: Monitoring for Disk Variability • Anthony M. DeRocchis and Gary D. Henson Photometry and Lightcurve Analysis of 7 Main-Belt Asteroids • Renata Violante and Martha A. Leake Multiband Polarimetry of the Jet in 3C 371 • Riley P. Wetzel and Eric S. Perlman Discovery of a Probable SX Phoenicis Star in M107 (NGC 6171) • Thayne A. McCombs, Erik D. Reinhart, Andrew N Darragh, Elliott W. Johnson, and Brian Murphy The Color-Magnitude Diagram of M14 • Erik D. Reinhart, Thayne McCombs, Adrew N. Darragh, Zheyu J. Liu, Brian W. Murphy, and Kyle E. Conroy
