Alison Peck, with contributions by Gemini interns
Internships
Preparing the Next Generation at Gemini
Gemini offers opportunities for upper-level undergraduates, recent grads, and early gradu-
ate students at both its Hilo, Hawai’i, and La Serena, Chile, locations. These positions can
involve multifaceted projects in science, engineering, education and outreach, or software.
Our internships not only offer participants first-hand experience in a real-world working
environment, but allow them to perform in a professional capacity while establishing valu-
able relationships with workers in their fields of interest. The internships can vary in length
depending on the project and funding source, but all range from 10 weeks to 6 months.
The positions can take place at any time during the year, making these programs good “gap
year” opportunities.
In the last several months, Gemini has hosted three interns at Gemini North
and four at Gemini South. We asked the interns to tell us a bit about them-
selves and their exciting projects.
Tomás Ahumada recently graduated in astronomy from Pontificia Universidad
Católica de Chile in Santiago. He has been working at Gemini South with Bryan
Miller on a project using the high-performance, wide-field CCD Dark Energy
Camera on the Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Ob-
servatory. He is doing photometry on images of the elliptical shell galaxy NGC
3923, a unique elliptical galaxy, whose halo stars are arranged in concentric
layers. His goal is to search for unseen shells hidden within the structure of
this intriguing system. He will also analyze the globular clusters found in the
images, hoping to identify potential dwarf galaxy satellite candidates. Tomás’
project is part of a six-month internship.
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GeminiFocus
April 2017