summer research

ICG offers a variety of research experience placements aimed at providing experience of working as an academic research scientist to students ranging in age from Year 10 to final year undergraduates.

Applications are now open for all of our schemes, with deadlines for applications across the next two months (11th March for the Nuffield Scheme for Y12 students; 13th March for the Ogden Trust Scheme open to Ogden Alumni; 31st March for SEPnet and internally funded undergraduate research placements, and finally 29th April for our Y10 work experience week). For more details on eligibility or how to apply for any of these scheme please visit our research experience placements page.

To give an idea of the kind of experience you will have, here is a summary of the placements we hosted during the summer of 2015.

Students (front) and supervisors at the 2015 Summer Research Placement Symposium.

Students (front) and supervisors at the 2015 Summer Undergraduate Research Placement Symposium.

SEPnet and Internal Undergraduate Placements

Anna Laws (Southampton University) worked with ICG postdoc, Kyle Westfall on a project given the title of “The power spectrum of non-circular motions in disc galaxies“. Anna used data from the SDSS project MaNGA to investigate the dynamics of nearby galaxies. Anna won one of the six poster prizes at the student expo, and she and Kyle are still working on a publication from this work. When asked to describer her placement, Anna said “It was a good experience working in a research department at a University as I was able to get a good idea what it’s like to be a researcher”.
Steve Cunnington (Southampton Uni) who worked with ICG postdoc, Thomas Collett on a project, “Using gravitational lenses to measure the expansion of the Universe”. A very advanced draft of a paper based on this project exists. Steve told us, “I knew very little about astronomy before I started the project, but my time at ICG has given be the confidence to pursue further study in cosmology”.
Sarunas Verner (Southampton Uni) worked with ICG postdoc, Jeremy Sakstein on “Disformal Gravity Theories: A Jordan Frame Analysis”, and their paper based on this work was published in the Physical Review D.

Ogden Placements

Alex Todd (now in his 1st year Physical Science in Bath), worked with Karen Masters on “Quantifying the Effect of Image Depth on Morphological Classification of Galaxies”
Peter Thomas (now in his 2nd year Physics at Lancaster Uni) worked with Matt Hull and Jeremy Sakstein on “Cosmology in alternate theories of gravity”
Robert Vallance (now in his final year of Physics at Manchester) worked with Thomas Tram and Vincent Venin on “Testing Inflation in the Early Universe“
Taniya Parikh (who is now in her first year of a PhD with Daniel Thomas in the ICG) worked with Kyle Westfall and Daniel Thomas on “The internal motions of galaxies”.

Nuffield Placement

Joe Hind who is now in his final year at South Downs College worked with ICG PhD student, Tom Melvin, and his supervisor Dr. Karen Masters on a project looking into how visual morphologies in Galaxy Zoo depend on the filter of the image they’re taken in.

Schools (Y10) Work Experience Week

Finally, five young people from schools all over the Portsmouth area spent a week in the department in late June, working on projects which varied from calculating the motion of projectiles in different gravity models, to investigating the cosmic microwave background, or measuring the population of stars in a cluster.

Schools work experience participants and supervisors.

We hope you will consider applying for one of these schemes and spending some time with us this summer.

We welcome applications from all qualified applicants, but applications are particularly encouraged from traditionally under-represented groups in science. The University of Portsmouth holds an Athena SWAN bronze award and is an Institute of Physics Project Juno Supporter; these projects show a commitment to introduce organisational and cultural practices that promote gender equality in science and create a better working environment for men and women.

This summer ICG played host to a record number of post-16 and undergraduate students, giving them the experience of real, hands on research in astrophysics, cosmology and gravitation.

Ogden Summer Student, Alex Todd working on his project report.

Ogden Summer Student, Robert Vallance, talking with his supervisors, Thomas Tram and Vincent Vennin.

We hosted students on three different schemes

Nuffield Research Placements (which are open to students going into their final year of post-16 education)
Ogden Trust Summer Internships (open to all Ogden Scholars)
SEPNet Summer Placement Scheme (open to undergraduate students attending SEPNet Universities)

Here is the full list of projects:

Joe Hind (entering Upper 6th at South Downs College; Nuffield Science Bursary)
“Exploring the morphologies of galaxies in single-band SDSS images” – supervised by Karen Masters

Alex Todd (entering Y1 Bath University; Ogden Research Placement)
“Quantifying the Effect of Image Depth on Morphological Classification of Galaxies” – supervised by Tom Melvin and Karen Masters

Peter Thomas (entering Y2 Lancaster University; Ogden Research Placement).
“Shape dependent Vainshtein screening in G^3 theories” – supervised by Matt Hull and Jeremy Sakstein.

Robert Vallance (entering Y4 University of Manchester; Ogden Research Placement)
“Inflationary model selection confronted with neutrinos” – supervised by Thomas Tram and Vincent Vennin

Taniya Parikh (entering PhD programme at ICG Portsmouth; Ogden Research Placement)
“A fully dynamical calibration of the stellar-to-halo mass relation in disk galaxies” – supervised by Kyle Westfall

Anna Laws (entering Y3 Southampton University; SEPNet Placement)
“Power spectra of non-circular motions in disk galaxies” – supervised by Kyle Westfall

Steve Cunnington (entering Y3 Southampton University; SEPNet Placement)
“Measuring the expansion of the Universe with gravitational lensing of quasars. Does it Matter if we cherry-pick the best lenses?” – supervised by Thomas Collett

Sarunas Verena (entering Y4 Southampton University; SEPNet Placement)
“Cosmology in Alternate Gravity Theories” – supervised by Jeremy Sakstein

On Friday 4th September, the projects of students not staying on in Portsmouth were celebrated with our first ever, Summer Research Symposium. Open to all members of the ICG, this two hour symposium followed a typical format in science, with short talks followed by questions from the audience. Everyone who attended was impressed with the level of research on show, and the ICG Director, Bob Nichol said “I really enjoyed the talks and was amazing at the level of achievement and professionalism from all involved. The bar has been set high for next year!”

All of the students and supervisors who were able to attend are pictured below.

The ICG Class of 2015 Summer Students (front row) and supervisors (in back).

One of the students said of their summer placement “It has been a really really enjoyable experience and I am going to miss it here dearly. Such a friendly and welcoming environment.” The supervisors seemed to enjoy the experience this year too, with Jeremy Sakstein in particular encouraging any ICG member who is interested to get involved submit a project for next summer’s placements.

Robert Vallance with supervisors Thomas Tram and Vincent Vennin

The SEPNet Placement. Front row: Steve Cunnington and Anna Laws (Saruna Venera not pictured).

The Ogden Placement Scheme. Front row Taniya Parikh, Robert Vallance and Alex Todd (Peter Thomas not pictured).

Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation