Astronomical instruments for studies of black holes and stars.
Jessica Lu, Professor
Astronomy
Closed. This professor is continuing with Fall 2025 apprentices on this project; no new apprentices needed for Spring 2026.
The Moving Universe Lab helps design and build the astronomical instruments needed to find and study black holes, star cluster, and galactic centers. We work on adaptive optics development projects on small and large ground-based telescopes (e.g. Keck Observatory). Adaptive optics systems correct for the blurring effects of the Earth's atmosphere. We also work on developing CubeSat missions, which can deliver very precise time-domain photometry over large fields of view.
Role: Students would have the opportunity to design, build, or optimize components for one of several instrumentation projects. Depending on the students qualifications, this might include:
- performance simulations to help design a new Keck AO system (in early design phase)
- develop innovative techniques for calibrating AO systems.
- explore machine learning/AI methods on AO data
- build/test adaptive optics wavefront sensor in the lab
- construct mechanical design for CubeSat project
- build thermal error budget for CubeSat project
Qualifications: - Engineering or physical science major.
- Some experience with coding, enough to make plots and conduct basic analysis.
Hours: 12 or more hours
Mathematical and Physical Sciences