Undergrad USRA Projects 2025
To find out how to apply for USRAs, visit the department's Undergraduate Summer Research Awards page.
2025 Summer project descriptions will be updated as projects are submitted. Please see previous years' projects for more information about PHAS Faculty projects.
*Students: This will be a continuously growing list. Faculty members who are not listed here might be interested in supervising USRA students; please contact them directly (listed here or not) if they are engaged in research that interests you.
1.CHIME telescope: options for Pulsar and/or FRB projects
Contact: Ingrid Stairs | Email: stairs@astro.ubc.ca
This summer project will entail Pulsar and/or FRB work with the CHIME telescope: in particular, looking at slow pulsars to measure diffractive scintillation properties as a function of frequency; CHIME's wide fractional bandwidth could allow new probes of the predicted scaling of this phenomenon. Also, this project can include an investigation of wideband profile changes in these pulsars and comparison to narrowband literature measurements and conclusions. FRB projects could involve, for example, interference-excision improvements and testing.
For more information about the CHIME telescope, see here.
2. Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy in the Laboratory for Atomic Imaging Research
Contact: Sarah Burke | Email: saburke@phas.ubc.ca
Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy, and related Scanning Probe Microscopy techniques allow for the visualization of surface structure and probing of electronic properties on the atomic scale. These powerful techniques provide a “bottom-up” view of materials properties and their relationship to local structure. The LAIR has ongoing projects spanning single-molecule optoelectronics to superconductivity and 2D materials. Undergraduate students have opportunities to pursue projects related to specific materials under study, instrumentation and technique development, and development of analysis tools. Please contact saburke@phas.ubc.ca for more details.
3. Quantum Coherent Control
Contact: V. Milner | Email: vmilner@phas.ubc.ca | Web: http://coherentcontrol.sites.olt.ubc.ca/
Our research group on Quantum Coherent Control uses ultrafast lasers to control and study the behaviour of molecular "super-rotors" and their interaction with quantum media, such as helium nanodroplets or ultracold plasmas. Super-rotors are extremely fast rotating molecules produced in our laboratory (and not available anywhere else!) using a unique laser system known as an "optical centrifuge". Many fascinating properties of molecular super-rotors have been theoretically predicted. A few of them have been already shown by our group in the last five years, but many more await discovery.
In the summer of 2025, the USRA student will help a senior PhD student with an ongoing experiment on the laser centrifugation of molecules captured by the beam of helium nanodroplets. For specific tasks and projects, please contact Dr. Milner at vmilner@phas.ubc.ca.
4. Charting the Growth of Galaxies
Contact: Allison Man | Email: aman@phas.ubc.ca | Web: https://phas.ubc.ca/users/allison-man
Galaxies evolve on astronomical timescales of millions or even billions of years. The study of galaxy evolution is therefore based on inferring connections between various galaxy populations across cosmic time. This requires knowledge of galaxy properties, such as distances, sizes, masses, ages, and star formation rates. The student will learn now to extract such information from galaxy images and spectra. Driven by the student's interest, the project will tackle these important scientific questions: What triggers or shuts down star formation in galaxies? How do active supermassive black holes influence star formation of their host galaxies? What happens to galaxies when they collide with each other?
The student will apply their Python computing skills to handle large datasets and images, to visualize and to present findings. These skills are relevant for a variety of projects in astronomy, other research disciplines and beyond academia.
Experience with Python programming is required. Knowledge of physics, astronomy, statistics, data analysis, LaTeX and Git will be considered a plus. The ideal candidate will have taken at least one ASTR course at the 200-level and above.
5. Ultrafast optical spectroscopy
Contact: David Jones | Email: djjones@phas.ubc.ca | Web: www.phas.ubc.ca/~djjones
We have openings on two projects employing Ultrafast Optical Spectroscopy. In the first, we are developing laser-ablation dual comb spectroscopy to be employed as a mining ore sensor for real-time evaluation of mineralogy. Skills developed on this project can include: optical alignment, data analysis, machine learning, plasma physics, nonlinear optics, Python programming, atomic and molecular spectroscopy, and numerical simulations. In the second project we need help finishing the construction and commissioning of a field-resolved THz spectrometer for studies of quantum materials. Skills developed on this project can include: optical alignment, nonlinear optics, Python programming, cryogenics, vacuum technology, and numerical simulations. Please contact me for further details.
6. Emergent space-time structures and Dynamic horizons in Quantum Many-body Dynamics
Contact: Fei Zhou | Email: feizhou@phas.ubc.ca
Conformal symmetry plays a paramount role in quantum many-body dynamics where interactions are scale symmetric. It has been shown that conformal symmetry can lead to distinct structures in N-body density matrices (including the Wigner function) and many-body auto-correlation functions. It can further result in entirely reversible far-away-from equilibrium dynamics.
In this project, the student will explore a close connection between such quantum dynamics and the expansion of our universe. Especially, the student will learn how to simulate the Friedmann-Einstein dynamics for the FLRW universe using an emergent space-time structure in conformal dynamics. The main objectives are to understand 1) the nature of curvature and dark matter effects in the context of quantum many-body dynamics and 2) possibilities of observing cosmological redshifts, and cosmic horizons etc in N-body quantum dynamic states that can be initialized in laboratories.
7. Statistics of CMB Polarization
Contact: Dr. Douglas Scott | Email: dscott@phas.ubc.ca | Web: https://www.astro.ubc.ca/people/scott/basic.html
The cosmic microwave background allows us to probe the Universe on the largest length scales possible. There are several hints or "anomalies" that may suggest modifications to physics on large scales or at very early times in the history of the Cosmos. In order to assess if such anomalies are real or just mild statistical excursions in the data, it is necessary to find new ways to probe the large-scale Universe. One such new probe is provided by sensitive measurements of CMB polarization, which comes from new modes in the early Universe. The latest maps of large-angle polarization have been provided by the Planck satellite. In this project we will study aspects of sky polarization, and investigate statistical techniques that can be used to distinguish the cosmological signals and to test for deviations from statistical anisotropy. Additionally, it will be useful to assess the power of future (more sensitive) polarization measurement using simulations.
8. Deep Learning in Astronomy
Contact: Dr. Douglas Scott | Email: dscott@phas.ubc.ca | Web: https://www.astro.ubc.ca/people/scott/basic.html
There are many data analysis problems in astronomy that are best approached using simple likelihood function methods. However, there are other questions (involving non-linear selection tasks, or pattern-matching in huge databases) that are more efficiently performed with "machine-learning" (ML) methods, such as neural networks. One downside to the use of ML approaches is that it is often difficult to determine robust uncertainties on derived parameters. Another unresolved issue is how to combine traditional and ML methods in tasks that use both approaches for different parts. We will investigate these topics by looking at the use of ML in astronomy, combining data at multiple wavelengths to identify and categorize distant galaxies and assess their statistical properties.