SETI: Breakthrough Listen
Imke de Pater, Professor
Astronomy
Closed. This professor is continuing with Fall 2023 apprentices on this project; no new apprentices needed for Spring 2024.
Berkeley SETI Research Center (BSRC): the Breakthrough Listen project.
BSRC is a world-leader in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence – the quest for a scientific answer to one of humanity’s oldest questions: Are we alone in the Universe? Housed in the Astronomy Department at the University of California, Berkeley, the team at BSRC leads the science program for the $100-million Breakthrough Listen project. Our scientists and engineers are pioneers in the development of software, instrumentation, and science strategy for the search for intelligent life on other worlds. We have access to substantial amounts of time on the planet’s largest telescopes, connections to leading players in industry, and we’re based in one of the world’s premiere astronomy research institutions. We’re also psyched that we get to wake up each day and hunt for aliens.
Role: BSRC seeks undergraduate research interns to work at the cutting edge of the search. Previous interns have written software to monitor the status of the telescopes we use, algorithms to search vast quantities of data for interesting signals, visualizations of our target databases, and much more. If you are motivated, work well as a member of a team, and can take initiative and responsibility for your own work, you’ll fit in well in our group. In fact, our Director Dr. Andrew Siemion started his own research career as a UC Berkeley undergraduate!
The majority of our projects make heavy use of modern programming languages and tools. While we don’t expect applicants to be experts in all of these areas, familiarity and experience with one or more of Python / Jupyter, version control (e.g. git / github), database software (e.g. MySQL), visualization tools (e.g. Bokeh, D3, etc.), GPU programming, visualization, interface design, machine-learning environments, cloud computing, Unix / Linux scripting, and / or public outreach will make for a strong application. Prior astronomy research experience is not a prerequisite, although if you have knowledge or experience of positional astronomy, observational astronomy, radio astronomy, signal processing, and / or data reduction we would like to hear about that in your application.
Qualifications: Computer skills
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Steve Croft, Staff Researcher
Hours: 9-11 hrs
Mathematical and Physical Sciences