Announcing 2022 Summer Internships for Leicester Undergraduates

Applications are open for the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) scheme for 3rd and 4th year Leicester undergraduates.

SURE Logo 2013

The SURE programme provides paid opportunities for talented undergraduates to get a flavour of the cutting-edge research being undertaken within the School of Physics and Astronomy.

We will host 5-6 Leicester undergraduates (3rd or 4th year students) for paid internships, working on Central Campus or at Space Park Leicester. Internships will be for a maximum of six weeks (35 hrs/week), and can be undertaken at any point between June and September, subject to negotiation with the proposed supervisor team. You will be expected to present the results of your internship to the School at the end of the summer, and to provide documentation/reports to your supervisors as appropriate.

We particularly encourage applications from students who have yet to secure a graduate position, for whom an internship will likely be of greatest benefit for their longterm career ambitions.

Application Process

To make an application, please send an email to physadmin@le.ac.uk with the following:

  • A one-page curriculum vitae as a PDF attachment. ***Note, you will not be penalised if the CV spills over onto a second page.
  • A completed application form [DOCX, available via Blackboard], which includes your top-three selected projects from the list below, any preferred dates for the internship between June and September, and a personal statement (no more than one side of A4) explaining how your existing skills and experience make you the perfect person to undertake your three selected projects.
  • A nominated referee – this person will be contacted if you are shortlisted for a post for a standard Unitemps reference.

The submission deadline is Friday March 4th at 2pm – earlier applications are welcome, and please don’t leave it to the last minute.

Selections will be made by a panel consisting of the SURE supervisors below, with announcements by the end of March 2022. The criteria for selection include:

  • Progress and grades during your degree to date.
  • Suitability for the chosen research project, including computational/experimental skills as appropriate.
  • Context of the application – e.g., how this may benefit future career ambitions, underrepresented groups, topical decisions for PhD research or employment, etc.

Please address any queries to leigh.fletcher@le.ac.uk.

Project Descriptions

Please continue to check back as more projects are added to the list below.

NIX22: Dynamics of accretion on to black holes

Supervision team: Dr Chris Nixon – Computational, Theoretical

Project summary: Accretion on to black holes is a major theme in modern astronomy. This project will advance our understanding of accretion by exploring theoretical models, and exploiting recent breakthroughs to develop new models. Numerical simulations will be performed and the results will be analysed to deduce observational implications. This computational project will utilise the University’s high performance computing (HPC) facility.
Desirable skills: The project will make use of or enhance your skills in programming (Fortran or C), bash, linux, and HPC.
Proposed date range: Flexible.

HUM22: Building an Urban Climate Laboratory at Space Park Leicester

Supervision team: Dr Neil Humpage, Dr Josh Vande Hey, and Dr Tim Trent

Project summary: It is estimated that by 2050, two out of every three of us will be living in city and urban centres. In a warming climate, this concentrates around 2.5 billion people in areas which face a number of challenges under climate change. The backbone of any future strategies that look to mitigate these impacts will rely on long term monitoring of these urban environments. As a student working on this project you will work with scientists at Space Park Leicester to set up and work with new instrumentation, and integrate data flows to produce a suite of environmental measurements that we can use to monitor and understand changes in the atmosphere over Leicester. We are able to offer a project with a practical, computational, or data analysis focus, or whatever combination of these best suits your interests and skills.

LIN22a: Optimising the calibration of the Mercury Imaging X-ray Spectrometer

Supervision Team: Dr Simon Lindsay & Dr Adrian Martindale – Data Analysis

Project summary: The BepiColombo mission to Mercury, carrying on board MIXS, an X-ray spectrometer designed and built at the University of Leicester, will arrive at its destination in December 2025 and start returning science data in April 2026. But in the intervening four months, it will be achieving its final orbit and performing vital calibration measurements necessary to make sense of the data it sends back.

The student will help the MIXS team in developing our calibration plan for this crucial phase of the mission. MIXS will observe astrophysical X-ray sources like the Crab Nebula and Scorpius X-1 to characterise itself, but there are significant constraints on what observations are possible due to the extremely harsh thermal environment at Mercury, which only allow certain orientations of the spacecraft with respect to the Sun and Mercury itself.

The student will use existing tools produced by the Leicester project team and the European Space Agency to identify the best opportunities for MIXS calibration during different phases of the BepiColombo early mission and assess the viability of different calibration targets. This is a fantastic opportunity for a student to play a genuinely important role in preparing the only UK instrument on BepiColombo for the world-leading science it will perform during its mission.

LIN22b: Planning the first observations with the Mercury Imaging X-ray Spectrometer

Supervision Team: Dr Simon Lindsay & Dr Adrian Martindale – Data Analysis

Project summary: The BepiColombo mission to Mercury, carrying on board MIXS, an X-ray spectrometer designed and built at the University of Leicester, will arrive at its destination in December 2025 and start returning science data in April 2026. The early mission will be a time of great interest, with all eyes on the instrument teams, including MIXS, and analysis of the data that comes back will need to be done as quickly as possible.

The student will help the MIXS team identify and prioritise the most interesting and notable surface targets that MIXS will be able to observe during the first few months of its science mission. Our possible targets include craters, areas of volcanic activity, regions covered by “low reflectance material”, escarpments caused by the shrinking of the planet, volcanic vents and the mysterious hollows, shallow steep-sided pits found in crater floors.

The student will develop a catalogue of possible targets, their location, properties, size, and most importantly the viewing geometry under which observations will be possible (this is already defined by the flight operations plan). This is an opportunity for a student to be involved in shaping the critical early science phase of a ground-breaking planetary science mission, identifying the scientific priorities for the first part of the mission and shaping the activities of the MIXS science team.

BRI22: The Winchcombe Meteorite Fall: A Pristine Carbonaceous Chondrite from the Outer Asteroid Belt

Supervision Team: Professor John Bridges, Dr Leon Hicks – Experimental and/or Data Analysis

Project summary: The Winchcombe fireball occurred on the 28th February 2021 and was recorded by 16 stations operated by the UK Fireball Alliance. The fireball was also captured on numerous doorbell and dashcam videos and there were >1000 eyewitness reports of a sonic boom. Following an appeal in the media, the main mass of the meteorite was discovered the next day in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire. The stone landed on a driveway, shattering into a pile of dark mm- to cm-sized fragments and powder. The largest intact piece of the Winchcombe meteorite is a 152 g fusion-crusted stone found on farmland. In total, 532 g of material was recovered less than seven days after the fall.

A uniquely pristine meteorite fall like Winchcombe gives the opportunity to study samples from the earliest Solar System unaffected by terrestrial contamination. In this project the student will analyse a section of the meteorite using the electron microscopes in the Advanced Microscopy Centre, for which they will receive training. Orbital data for the Winchcombe meteoroid are also available allowing a description of the source regions of the parent asteroid.

SAN22: Detection of Solar radio bursts at Mars

Supervision Team: Dr. Beatriz Sanchez-Cano & Professor Mark Lester – Data Analysis

Project summary: The Sun emits radio waves that propagate through the solar corona and interplanetary medium, where they are refracted and scattered. Some of the most intense radio sources in the kilometric range are the solar type III radio bursts, which are associated with solar flares and are produced when the Langmuir waves are excited by the flare accelerated electron beams that propagate along open magnetic field lines. These radio bursts are typically detected by instruments operating in the radio frequency and are identified as sudden bursts in which their emissions drift rapidly from high to low frequencies in a very short amount of time (of the order of seconds-minutes).

Solar type III radio bursts have been studied since the 1940s but all observations were limited to Earth’s orbit. Recently, more information is being gather thanks to new solar missions such as Solar Orbiter and Parker Solar Probe. However, our knowledge at Mars’ orbit remains limited. The Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) onboard Mars Express has been regularly recording these radio bursts since its deployment at Mars in mid-2005. Yet, this dataset has not been analysed in detail as it is not the main product for which the radar was designed. The goal of this project is to get the first characterisation of solar type III radio bursts at Mars using the full MARSIS dataset, and when possible, identify the solar source that produced these events as well as their propagation in the inner heliosphere by comparing data to other spacecraft.

LEA22: Wavelength Shifting Plates to Improve Photon Detection Efficiency

Supervision Team: Dr Steve Leach, Prof Jon Lapington, Space Research Centre – Experimental, Data Analysis

Project summary: Water-Cherenkov detectors are used in many large-scale experiments to track and measure subatomic particles. Ultra-sensitive photon-counting detectors are essential to capture the low-level Cherenkov emissions and the larger the area, the greater performance. However, there is a cost trade-off, especially when the experiment design requires hundreds of detectors. This SURE project will investigate the use of wavelength shifting materials (WLS) as a way of extending the active detection area of a photodetector, collecting secondary photons, with the goal of improving the overall detection efficiency. The experimental work, carried out in the Space Research Centre Michael Atiyah labs, will include working with ultra-sensitive photodetectors, WLS materials, UV source and water-Cherenkov muon detectors to investigate photon timing and detection efficiencies.

Experimental laboratory experience is essential for this project. Read more about Large Area Photo-Detection System, and the response of wavelength shifting panels in large water Cherenkov systems.

LAM22:  Prompt Emission Model for Gamma-ray Burst Internal Shocks 

Supervision Team:  Dr. Gavin P Lamb, Prof. Nial R. Tanvir –  Computational, Theory 

Project summary: Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs) are the most powerful electromagnetic explosions in the Universe but the details of the mechanisms that produce the GRB remain unknown. The internal shocks model for the prompt GRB emission states that collisions between multiple shells of matter, within a highly collimated and ultra-relativistic jet, can produce not only the required energy for a GRB via synchrotron radiation, but also the observed short variability timescale. 

Using the output from 3D hydrodynamic simulations of jets, propagating through a neutron star merger wind, we aim to build a numerical model that can calculate the expected collision radius, timescale, and emission qualities for the various ‘shells’ of matter in the simulation’s end-state. The numerical model can be used to produce synthetic GRB lightcurves based on realistic initial conditions and compared to the observed Swift sample of short GRBs 

Skills: We can teach all the required skills e.g., coding for science, plotting, and report writing, however, reasonable confidence in coding and/or experience of numerical modelling, would be very helpful. 

Dates: (tentative) early June – to mid-July.

AST22: Opportunity to work with AST SpaceMobile at Space Park Leicester

Supervision Team: Sriram Jayasimha

AST SpaceMobile, Inc. is a company building the first and only space-based cellular broadband network accessible directly by standard mobile phones.  The SURE intern would have the opportunity to work within the UK headquarters of AST Mobile at Space Park Leicester.  Three potential studies are envisioned, depending on the capabilities of the student:  (i) maximising aggregate beam throughput over each satellite pass by downlink beam power control as a function of satellite elevation; (ii) studying equatorial scintillation loss distribution over field-of-view (FOV) beams (at varying sun angles); and (iii) studying the maximum duration of interruptions in LTE service as a function of MCS/ throughput.  Reading materials will be supplied by AST before the internship, but see Ionospheric propagation data and prediction methods required for the design of satellite networks and systems and LTE Physical Layer Performance Analysis for background.

 

FAQs

  • Why are you restricting to 3rd and 4th years? Traditionally the SURE programme was open to 3rd year students from across the UK, but the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic meant that many missed out on the opportunity, so we wanted to give them another shot. We will endeavour to find a good balance of 3rd and 4th year students, as described on our assessment criteria above. Our 1st and 2nd year students will hopefully have the opportunity to apply to the programme in the years to come.
  • Why only Leicester undergraduates? The need for flexibility, virtual supervision, and the fast turnaround of this new programme has meant that we needed to keep this scheme for internal applicants in 2022.
  • Will I be required to be in Leicester over the summer? Yes, it is likely that the projects will be conducted in person in Summer 2022, unlike previous summers of virtual projects. You would therefore be expected to be near campus for the 6-week duration of your internship?
  • How will I be paid? Students will receive an allowance from which they are expected to fund their accommodation, cost of living and travel expenses. We will use the Unitemps system of temporary staff hires. You will be paid monthly in arrears, meaning that your final payment will likely be made in September. Proof of right-to-work in the UK will be required before the internship begins.
  • Do you offer unpaid internships? Unpaid roles are inaccessible and unavailable to low-income students and families, and we discourage students from taking on such positions. Your work and time are valuable, so you should be reimbursed.
  • Are there other opportunities? Possibly – speak to individual tutors, advisors, and staff to see if funds are available to support internships outside of the SURE programme (e.g., through fellowships). We will advertise any opportunities as soon as we are aware of them.

Share this page:

Share this page:

Leave a Reply

Network-wide options by YD - Freelance Wordpress Developer