Summer Internships 2019

The School of Physics and Astronomy invites applications from motivated undergraduates for Summer Internship positions. Successful applicants will spend 6-8 weeks in Cardiff working with researchers, staff and students within the school. The following projects are currently offered:

Michelson Interferometer Interface Design

This project will involve designing and building hardware and software to develop an interface to a Michelson interferometer, suitable for use in public exhibitions and with visiting students. The interface will be through a RaspberryPi and link to both. The internship will have a duration of 6-8 weeks. For more information, please contact Dr Chris North.

Eligibility: any undergraduate student, from any University can apply, and from any discipline. Applicants must be able to travel to and work in the UK.

Required Skills: Suitable applicants would ideally have experience interfacing between software/computers, and practical lab experience.

Stipend: A stipend of £275 per week will be paid.

Deadline for applications: 30th April 2019 5pm BST

Start date and duration: Flexible; 4-8 weeks in mid-June – late-August.

How to apply

Send a CV, cover letter and an academic transcript to physics-ug@cardiff.ac.uk by 30th April 2019, stating clearly which internship(s) you would like to apply for.

Gravitational waves outreach and education

This will involve development of electromagnetic follow-up analysis software suitable for school students, and extension of additional workshop activities to lower ages (e.g. from A-level to GCSE). This will involve working on gravitational wave data from LIGO/Virgo and astronomical data from a range of electromagnetic telescopes. For more information, please contact Dr Chris North.

Eligibility: any undergraduate student, from any University can apply, and from any discipline. Applicants must be able to travel to and work in the UK.

Required Skills: Suitable applicants should have experience in python, and analysing astronomical images, and ideally science communication. Detailed knowledge of gravitational waves or general relativity is not required.

Stipend: A stipend of £275 per week will be paid.

Deadline for applications: 30th April 2019 5pm BST

Start date and duration: Flexible; 4-8 weeks in mid-June – late-August.

How to apply

Send a CV, cover letter and an academic transcript to physics-ug@cardiff.ac.uk by 30th April 2019, stating clearly which internship(s) you would like to apply for.null

Physics Mentoring Project and outreach development

This internship will involve development and dissemination of activities for school audiences. This would include further development of resources used in the Physics Mentoring Project, and possible assistance with summer schools. A second aspect would be organisation and sanitisation of the other physics and astronomy educational resources and workshops we offer through the School. For more information please contact Dr Chris North or Rosie Mellors.

Eligibility: any undergraduate student, from any University can apply, and from any discipline. Applicants must be able to travel to and work in the UK.

Required Skills: Suitable applicants should have experience of science communication, preferably with secondary schools.

Stipend: A stipend of £275 per week will be paid.

Deadline for applications: 30th April 2019 5pm BST

Start date and duration: Flexible; 4-8 weeks in mid-June – late-August.

How to apply

Send a CV, cover letter and an academic transcript to physics-ug@cardiff.ac.uk by 30th April 2019, stating clearly which internship(s) you would like to apply for.

Diamond outreach and education (Cardiff students only)

We are interested in developing outreach and education materials linked to our Diamond research group. The materials will demonstrate the science and technology of the diamond research group in Cardiff University, though the exact details would be developed as part of the internship by the student. For more information, please contact Dr Chris North.

Eligibility: any undergraduate student from Cardiff University.

Required Skills: Suitable applicants should have experience with science communication. Detailed knowledge of diamond research is not necessary, but a background in physics would be beneficial.

Stipend: A stipend of £60 per day will be paid, funded by the Ogden Trust.

Deadline for applications: 30th April 2019 5pm BST

Start date and duration: Flexible; 6-8 weeks in mid-June – late-August.

How to apply

Send a CV, cover letter and an academic transcript to physics-ug@cardiff.ac.uk by 31st April 2019, stating clearly which internship(s) you would like to apply for.

CUROP projects (Cardiff students only)

Projects are offered through the Cardiff University Research Opportunities Programme (CUROP). Two projects are currently offered. Full details are available on the CUROP portal, but summaries are below.

Modelling molecules of evolved stars and measuring their molecular abundances

This summer internship is to work on a research project of modelling and interoperating astrophysical observational data. Specifically, the project is to understand the Herschel Space Observatory’s spectra of evolved stars, asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars and red-supergiants. The student will learn how to developing a code, and problem-solving and logic-reasoning skills, that can also be applied to not only astronomical projects but other IT or research careers. For more information, visit the CUROP portal or contact the supervisor, Dr Mikako Matsuura.

Eligibility: any undergraduate student from Cardiff University who will be continuing their studies next year, and who is registered with JobShop.

Required skills: Knowledge of the Herschel spectrometer, and molecular (astro-)physics is an advantage. Good experience in python coding will be an advantage.

Stipend: Students will be paid through their JobShop account, up to a maximum of 200 hours per student.

Deadline for applications: 30th April 2019 5pm BST

How to apply

Please apply through the CUROP portal on the Student Intranet.

Relativistic Ray-tracer for Galactic Center Stellar Orbits

Astronomers on the Earth have been observing the orbits of stars within the immediate vicinity (1 arc second) of Sgr A* or the Galactic center black hole (BH) for over two decades. Recent investigations show that these stellar orbital measurements can be used to constrain the properties of the Galactic center black hole such as its mass, spin, and even the No-hair Theorem by exploiting the relativistic effects encoded in the orbital data. The student will develop ray-tracing code, and in doing so learn Bayesian statistics, MCMC method, data analysis, and enhance their programming skills. For more information, visit the CUROP portal or contact the supervisor, Dr Hong Qi.

Eligibility: any undergraduate student from Cardiff University who will be continuing their studies next year, and who is registered with JobShop.

Required skills: Candidates from Physics, Computing, Maths and Engineering are welcome. The student should be proficient in python. Knowledge of special and/or general relativity are preferable, but not essential.

Stipend: Students will be paid through their JobShop account, up to a maximum of 200 hours per student.

Deadline for applications: 30th April 2019 5pm BST

How to apply

Please apply through the CUROP portal on the Student Intranet.

Las Cumbres Observatory: Education Coder

LCO are running a 6-8 week, paid internship programme between June – August 2019 for undergraduate students. They are looking for students to work with the Las Cumbres Observatory education team, based in Cardiff University, to create tools for science communication, related to astronomy and robotic telescopes.

They are looking for undergraduates with experience in coding and an interest in astronomy. The internship will be to help develop an interactive​ observation​ site​. This site​ will ​be ​use​d​ for educational projects ​to monitor astronomical phenomena​ using LCO’s robotic telescopes network.

For more information please see the LCO announcement.

Eligibility: You must be going into year 2, 3, or 4 of your degree, or graduating this year, and be able to travel to UK.

Required skills (one or more of these would be perfect): Excellent knowledge of Python and preferably experience in creating sites with Django or Flask

Deadline for applications:  May 4th, 2019, 5pm BST

Studentship: A stipend of £250 per week will be paid by LCO.

How to apply

Both complete this Google Form application AND send your CV/resumé to egomez (at) lco.global with the subject “Internship Application”. The LCO education team will be in touch with you soon after the deadline.