The SPITZER Science Center (SSC) announces the availability of six-month graduate student fellowships beginning summer 2006 designed to allow students from other institutions throughout the world to visit the SSC and perform astronomical research in close association with a SSC staff member during 2006/7. The aim of the program is to provide a graduate student from another institution with the opportunity of working at the SSC during the SPITZER mission, and to share in the excitement of NASA's latest Great Observatory. Applicants would normally be expected to have completed preliminary course work in their graduate program and be available for research during the period of the award. Funding from the SSC will be provided for a 6-month period via a monthly stipends, airfare to the SSC from the home institution and some start-up expenses. Typically 4-5 students will be accepted on the program. Students would normally begin work at the SSC in July 2006 and leave in early Jan 2007. We prefer to take all student at the same time.

Students interested in applying to visit the SSC should send the following:

1) A brief letter of introduction to the SSC (contact address below) indicating your interest in a particular research area connected with SPITZER research.  The letter should include the following information:
 

•  The approximate start-date  of your visit (somewhere between June and Aug 2006--aim for July!). For non-US citizens, we will attempt to provide information  quickly confirming your acceptance onto the program so that we will have time to help you apply for visas etc. It may be wise to plan for a certain amount of delay in obtaining a visa--so this should be built into your proposed plan. 
  

• A brief description of your current status as a graduate student, including relevant course work completed

• A brief description of how your current research interests might match with that of an available member of the SSC research staff. Its probably a good idea to rank the top 4 projects that you might like to participate in. A list of participating research staff, their general areas of research and a brief description of a specific project, will appear on this web-site by March 1. Note that, because of the short-term nature   of the fellowships, you will work closely with a SSC staff member during your stay here.

•  Please list any research experience you may already have in astronomy. In addition, please tell us of any experience you may have with  astronomical software packages (e. g. IRAF, AIPS etc).

2) A one-page CV.
3) A letter from your current major professor or academic advisor indicating that you are available to visit the SSC during the proposed period.  If you are selected as a candidate for a fellowship, it is likely that someone from our admissions committee will call you and your advisor to discuss logistics, and the best way for your visit to fit mesh with your graduate education.

DEADLINE FOR 2006-7 program  April 15 2006 (extended by 2 weeks from previous posting)

WHERE TO APPLY:

Applications should be made to:

SPITZER Visting Graduate Student Fellowship Program
Attn: Dr. P. N. Appleton
SPITZER Science Center
Mailcode 314-6
Keith Spalding Building,
California Institute of Technology
1200 E. California Blvd.
Pasadena CA 91125
Fax: 626-432-7484
(Please Note that e-mail applications are not accepted)

Here is a list of research staff who have indicated that they would like to have a student to work with. You may propose other projects with other SSC research staff as well. If your favorite research area is not represented--apply anyway because we may be able to find a match with someone here. Members of staff who have had a student in the last year under this program will be given a lower priority than those who have not (colored purple).

Ranga-Ram Chary : Measurement of the power spectrum of the fluctuations across the ultra-deep GOODS (Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey) field will yield constraints on the fraction of baryons that have gone through Population III stars and supernova (the primary contributor to the re-ionization of the universe at z > 6), as well as their contribution to the reionization of the intergalactic medium. We invite students with a strong background in fourier-transforms and power-spectrum measurement techniques to work with us on these key problems.

William Reach (**advised student 2003/4): Openings are available in several ongoing projects: (1) survey of cometary debris trails with Spitzer and Palomar, (2) spectroscopy of protostars discovered in Spitzer images, (3) imaging and spectroscopy of the diffuse interstellar medium, (4) zodiacal light spatial and spectral variations. All projects involve analysis of recent Spitzer data as well as supporting ground-based data and theoretical modeling.

Luisa Rebull (**advised student 2005/2006) : North American and Pelican Nebulae: The giant molecular cloud housing  the North American Nebulacontains both an extensive (>10⁴ stars) distributed young (1-5 Myr) low and high mass population spanning 2x2 degrees (30x30 pc) as well as newly-formed stars in multiple clusters and aggregates. I have IRAC and MIPS data covering the entire ~4 square degree region of the complex. I am looking for someone to help with the data reduction; there will be many projects available within this data set on characterizing the young stellar population and disk lifetimes, as well as subsequent followup work.

Schuyler Van Dyk Cosmic Explosions -- study supernovae of all types, environments in their host galaxies, and their stellar progenitors, using Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer data.

Carl Grillmair: Searching for tidal streams in the Milky Way Galaxy. This is part of a project to identify targets for the Space Interferometry Mission which will enable us to unravel the structure of the Galaxy and the distribution of dark matter. I am looking for someone (preferrably with experience in IRAF and IDL) to manage a photometry pipeline and process several observing runs worth of wide field optical imaging. The candidate would also assist in the publication of results and with observing runs in Arizona and Chile.

Patrick Lowrance: Studies of brown dwarfs in mid-IR, companion searches, low mass star debris disks.

Jeonghee Rho : Infrared emission from supernova remnants (Spitzer/2MASS/Palomar)

Harry Teplitz: The nature of galaxies at high redshift/Lyman-break galaxies/Mid-IR luminosity evolution as a function of photometric redshift from First Look Survey (Spitzer/HST/Extensive ground based data)

Gillian Wilson: (**advised student 2003/4):  High redshift (z >1) 
clusters of galaxies, mapping dark matter using gravitational lensing, and general studies of galaxy evolution  (clustering, star formation rates), especially the relationship between mass and 
luminosity, and in how galaxies trace dark matter. Projects might include:  (1) Clusters 
of galaxies at 1 < z < 2 discovered by means of their red sequence, (2) Modelling of 
field galaxy stellar masses, (3) Evolution of dark matter halos from the Deep Lens 
Survey measured from their galaxy-galaxy lensing signal.
 
<>Lin Yan : Early type galaxies at z > 1, utilizing the extensive
dataset from the COSMOS survey. Specifically, we will
use the parallel HST/NICMOS H-band data to measure
colors, morphologies, luminosity function and stellar mass
function for red galaxies selected from the HST data.
In addition, we will also use the Spitzer IRAC and MIPS 24um
data to determine the infrared properties, including dust
opacities and presence of starburst/AGN, of these
high-z sources. 

<>


For further information on the SSC Visiting Grad. Student Program
please
contact:

apple@ipac.caltech.edu (Philip Appleton: Chair of VGSP Committee)