University of New Mexico
Grant: $65,225 - National Science Foundation - May. 22, 2009
100% voted satisfied - 0% voted not satisfied - 1 vote(s) cast
Join the conversation: Post a comment about this award
Award Description: The Los Alamos Summer School is a ten week program for undergraduate physics students held in Los Alamos, New Mexico, with the support of the University of New Mexico and Los Alamos National Laboratory. The school's principal aims are to expose the students to frontier research in physics and to provide training and encouragement for them to pursue careers in physics and related areas. Twelve participants are selected from a national pool of over one hundred applicants, based upon their submission of a web-based application form, transcripts, and letters of reference. Half of the students are supported by this grant, and half by DOE/LANL funds. A stipend is given to each student to cover incidental costs of living, transportation, and meals. We separately pay each student's registration fee and tuition for a special UNM research course which can be transfered to the student's home institution. LANL provides apartments for all the participating students. Experts from UNM and LANL, as well as distinguished visitors, give lectures to the students on astrophysics, condensed matter, particle physics, and atomic, molecular, and optical physics as well as applied physics (including biophysics, lasers, and quantum computing). Much of the students' time is spent on individual research projects with mentors from the senior scientific staff of LANL, working on topics of mutual interest. The students are matched to mentors based on their expressed preferences and backgrounds, and they have access to LANL and UNM library, computational, and experimental resources. Final reports by the students are published by LANL as a LA-UR Report. Often student projects lead to publications in refereed journals. Most of the students present their results in LANL's annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, and many additionally present at external national meetings. Field trips to sights of scientific interest are arranged, including the VLA, Magdalena Ridge, Sunspot, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
Project Description: Twelve undergraduate participants were recruited. All have successfully completed their research projects, which covered topics ranging from study of vascular networks to computational neuroscience to turbulence in the climate system. The student reports are presently being compiled into final papers and conference presentations.
Jobs Summary: One month of faculty summer salary was allocated to organization of the summer school. Twelve university students were each supported to conduct 1.5 months-equivalent of research. (Total jobs reported: 2)
Project Status: More than 50% Completed
This award's data was last updated on May. 22, 2009. Help expand these official descriptions using the wiki below.
No comments have been added for this project.