URAP

Juan Carlos Martinez Oliveros - Research Scientist, Space Sciences Laboratory

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Much of the high-energy Universe remains an enigma, with some phenomena that have been discovered—like gamma-ray bursts, magnetar flares, and supernovae— still to be studied, analyzed and better understood. With the development of technology in the soft/medium gamma-ray regime, we are able to “see” the...

Tony Mercer - Research Scientist, Space Sciences Laboratory

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

The undergraduate researcher will assist in the operations of the Solar Probe SWEAP instruments and the MAVEN PF instruments, including spacecraft coordination, science data pipeline and processing, instrument health and safety, and python data reduction and visualization software. As a note, the researcher may need to visit the lab occasionally...

Raul Monsalve - Research Scientist, Space Sciences Laboratory

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

The Radio Cosmology Group (RCG) at the Space Sciences Laboratory is a leader in the study of the first billion years of the Universe through the design and operation of state-of-the art radio frequency instrumentation to measure radio waves from space. We are seeking an undergraduate research assistant...

Ali Rahmati - Research Scientist, Space Sciences Laboratory

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

Solar flares are large sudden eruptions on the Sun's surface, resulting in the release of energy in the form of particle acceleration (electrons and ions) and electromagnetic radiation (photons). The focus of this work is on Extreme UltraViolet (EUV) and X-ray photons produced by solar flares. These photons travel...

Prayash Sharma Pyakurel - Research Scientist, Space Sciences Laboratory

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: Off Campus

Magnetic reconnection in current sheets is an energy conversion process that rapidly converts magnetic energy into particle energy. In turbulent plasmas, which contain a large number of intense current sheets, reconnection has long been suggested to play an important role in the dissipation of turbulence energy at kinetic scales. The...

Weijie Sun - Staff Researcher, Space Sciences Laboratory

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: Off Campus

Flux Transfer Events (FTEs) are transient phenomena that occur at the boundary between the solar wind and a planet’s magnetosphere, where magnetic reconnection allows the exchange of magnetic flux, plasma and energy. Mercury’s magnetosphere is the smallest and most dynamic among the terrestrial planets, due to its proximity to the...

Paul Szabo - Research Scientist, Space Sciences Laboratory

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Our Moon is continuously exposed to protons from the solar wind and Earth’s magnetosphere. Upon impact, these ions alter the Moon’s surface and contribute to the formation of water. Some of the protons end up scattered away as neutral hydrogen atoms. Instruments onboard NASA’s IBEX spacecraft have been able to...

Paul Szabo - Research Scientist, Space Sciences Laboratory

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

The surface of Mercury is continuously exposed to ions from the solar wind and its own magnetosphere. Upon impact, these ions alter Mercury’s surface, cause surface erosion, and contribute to the formation of water. Mercury’s intrinsic global magnetic field and its interaction with the solar wind plasma stream make this...

John Tomsick - Research Scientist, Space Sciences Laboratory

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

The Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) is a NASA-funded gamma-ray space telescope currently in the calibration and characterization phase at Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL). After launch (anticipated August 2027), COSI will survey the 0.2–5 MeV sky as the most sensitive telescope in history in the energy range...

Anton Tremsin - Research Physicist, Space Sciences Laboratory

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

The Experimental Astrophysics Group at the Space Sciences Laboratory builds UV detector technology for space-based astronomical instruments as well as supports the development of detector technology for niche, land-based applications (typ. in support of biological, materials, high-energy physics research, etc.). We are currently seeking undergraduates who would...

Anton Tremsin - Research Physicist, Space Sciences Laboratory

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

We want to continue to show feasibility (demonstrate in the lab) a sensing/imaging approach we hope to propose in the future on a low-cost, space-based platform (cubesat, small sat, rocket). This effort supports proof of concept using mostly what we have available in the lab. Timepix/Medipix...

Michael H. Wong - Research Scientist, Space Sciences Laboratory

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

We use imaging time-series data from space telescopes (Hubble and James Webb) to track the motion of cloud features and measure the two-dimensional wind fields in Jupiter and Saturn. The most prominent features in the wind velocity fields of these atmospheres are east-west jets and coherent vortices...

Andreas Zoglauer - Staff Researcher, Space Sciences Laboratory

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

COSI, the Compton Spectrometer and Imager, is a NASA-funded gamma-ray telescope which is currently under development and scheduled for launch in 2027. It will observe Galactic nucleosynthesis and positron annihilation, as well as the most violent events in our Universe (supernovae, neutron star mergers) and the most extreme...

Andreas Zoglauer - Staff Researcher, Space Sciences Laboratory

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

The General Antiparticle Spectrometer (GAPS) is a NASA high-altitude balloon mission designed to detect messengers of dark matter interactions in the galaxy. Apprentices are needed to participate in development and testing of both hardware and online software as GAPS prepares for a December 2024 launch from Antarctica. GAPS is...

Andreas Zoglauer - Staff Researcher, Space Sciences Laboratory

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

MEGAlib is a toolkit designed to calibrate, simulate, reconstruct, and analyze data from gamma-ray detectors. It is widely used in astrophysics, solar physics, planetary science, nuclear security applications, and medical imaging. To support the continued development of MEGAlib, we plan to implement a set of end-to-end tests...