Summer Research Placement (undergrad)

[ghetom]

Hi, I'm a third year undergrad at Oxford, and I really want to find a physics based summer placement, where I can do some research, and possibly attend a lecture course (although research is my main aim).

I was lucky enough to spend 7 weeks in the Oxford Astro department last summer, doing a research project, but I would like to find a challenge somewhere else in 2010. Does anybody know of any good opportunities, (preferably, but not exclusively, in astrophysics or cosmology), available to UK citizens?

I'd really appreciate some help, because so far I've only found the CERN summer program, (which isn't astro), and a very small program at the AngloAustralian Observatory.

Thanks for help!

 

[cristo]

I don't know of any specific programmes, and am not sure where you would look, unfortunately. Perhaps you should speculatively email a few departments around the country and see if they have any information. I do know that the royal astronomical society has a pot of money that can be put towards undergrad research projects, so I imagine the only difficult part will be finding someone with a good idea for a short project who is willing to supervise you. What specific interests do you have; what was your research on last year?

 

[ghetom]

Thanks for the advice; especially about the RAS.

Last year I did a project indirectly looking for high redshift quasars; My supervisor had already identified candidate objects from the SDSS, and observed them to an R band magnitude ~25. I reduced and photometrized the images (using IRAF), and eliminated the SDSS candidates that had a corresponding optical source (The redshifted Lyman limit for z~6.5 is far longer than optical wavelengths). I also did some work with the oxford group working on the design for the square kilometre array. It was all pretty interesting and I learned a lot; but I would be interested in trying different things too; either in at a different wavelength, or theoretical work. I've really enjoyed all my astro/cosmology course, so I really wouldn't be fussy about any opportunity.