Applications are open for the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE2026) scheme for Leicester undergraduates.
The SURE programme provides paid opportunities for capable undergraduates to experience what it is like to work at the cutting-edge of research at the University of Leicester in the School of Physics and Astronomy and the Institute for Space.
We will host 5-10 undergraduates for paid internships, working at Central Campus, Space Park Leicester, or other university sites. Internships will be for a maximum of six weeks (37.5 hrs/week) and can be undertaken at any point between June 8th and August 28th, subject to negotiation with the proposed supervision team. You will be expected to attend a training session in May, present the results of your internship in person to the School during September, and to provide any required reports of your work to your supervisors. We particularly encourage applications from students who have not benefited from an internship in the past and are yet to secure a graduate position, for whom an internship will likely be of greatest benefit for their long-term ambitions.
Application Process
To be eligible to apply for SURE2026 you must,
- Be enrolled in an undergraduate degree at the University of Leicester;
- Have reached at least Level 2 (i.e. your second year of study, where a foundation year is Level 0);
- Have at least one full year of study remaining on your course (i.e. you are not in your final year) or have applied for a masters degree; and
- Be able to demonstrate dedication to your chosen area of study. There are many ways of doing this, but applicants whose attendance rate is below 70% or whose module weighted mark is below 65% are exceedingly unlikely to be successful.
To make an application, please complete the form here (requires a University login). That form will request:
- A selection of two or three projects from the list below;
- A personal statement, of less than 3500 characters, explaining your motivation for applying for a SURE internship, what you hope to gain from the scheme, and how your skills and experience make you well suited to your selected projects;
- A curriculum vitae, uploaded as a one-page PDF, which should summarise your qualifications, employment history, and any relevant experience or achievements; and
- A nominated referee (who will be contacted for a reference only if your application is successful).
Applications will be accepted at any time before 10am on Monday March 2nd. Please do not leave it to the last minute, as there will not be an opportunity to redress errors in your application.
Selections will be made by a panel consisting of the SURE supervisors below, with decisions announced during April 2025. The criteria for selection include:
- Progress and grades during your degree to date;
- Suitability for the chosen research project, including evidence of appropriate computational or experimental skills; and
- Context of the application such as how this may benefit the candidate’s career ambitions, improving access to research for under-represented groups, and topical decisions for PhD research or further employment.
Please address any queries to adam.povey@le.ac.uk.
Project Descriptions
ARM26 — Social Contexts of Space Research: A Feminist Exploration of Lives, Media, and/or Labour
BAK26 — Developing Mechanical Loading Systems for Space-Ready Applications
BAN26 — Spacecraft Communications: Advanced SDR Testbed
BRI26 — Lunar Impact Processes Recorded in Lunar Meteorites
CAR26 — Preparing for BepiColombo: Investigating Salts on Mercury Through X-Ray Fluorescence in the Laboratory
CHA26 — Exploring the Transient Universe with Low-Frequency Radio Telescopes
COX26 — A Determination of the Transmission of Water Vapour in the Far-Infrared
EYL26 — Finding Fast and Hidden Explosions with the Swift Satellite
HON26 — Development of a Swing-Arm Profilometer for Free-Form Surface Measurement in Laser Fusion Applications
JOY26 — Developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Exploration of Mars
POV26 — Smoke and Mirrors: Monitoring particulate pollution with EarthCARE
SPA26 — Ice Impacts: Decoding Sensor Signals and Investigating Shock Alteration of Organic Material
WAT26 — Investigating a New Method to Make Radioisotope Fuel for Space Nuclear Power Systems: Novel Nitrate Mixing (using non-radioactive simulants)
ARM26 — Social Contexts of Space Research: A Feminist Exploration of Lives, Media, and/or Labour
Supervisor team: Eleanor Armstrong, Emma Bunce
Categories: Data Analysis, Theoretical
Location: Space Park Leicester
This project will focus on harassment in the space sector. At present, data about harassment are limited and disparately located, with previous SURE students beginning to build a database of studies that this work will continue to build on. Much existing data are located in other reports or publications that focus on gender, racial, or sexual minorities in the field, personal testimonies, news media or surveys that tackle these experiences within the space sector directly (such as the Royal Astronomical Society Bullying and Harassment Report 2023). Through independent research, the student will collate data from these different sources to continue to populate a database of existing studies as the foundation of the project.
From here, the student will work with theories from gender studies and the students’ own interests to select pieces of interest that will allow a deeper exploration of the implications of these data. How are social forces shaping the lives of participants in the space sector? What work is being done to transform the sector and imagine labour and media representation otherwise in the space sector? The successful applicant will be interested to learn about the fields of science and technology studies, gender and feminist research in the social studies of outer space, although expertise in these areas already is not required. The student will be part of a research community that focuses on feminist social studies of outer space research; and will interface with the research community at the Leverhulme Centre for Humanity and Space as well.
This project is based in social-science methodology, not physical sciences, with a focus on the space community. Please note this project will tackle experiences of harassment (racism, sexism, gender-based discrimination, etc.), and while we will work together and the supervisor will provide support for spending time with these themes, these may not be topics all students want to spend time with. This project will not involve interviewing people about their experiences at Leicester or elsewhere but is likely to involve reading secondary data about experiences of harassment and other harms.
BAK26 — Developing Mechanical Loading Systems for Space-Ready Applications
Supervisors: Luke Baker, Melissa McHugh
Categories: Experimental, Theoretical
Location: Campus (Physics), Glenfield Hospital
Understanding how mechanical forces shape biology is essential for predicting human adaptation during spaceflight and enhancing long-term health and resilience in human life beyond Earth. Organoid systems, miniaturised 3-D tissue models, offer a powerful platform to study mechanobiology under space-relevant conditions, where microgravity, vibration, and launch stresses can alter cellular responses. This project aims to establish a mechanical loading system able to deliver controlled mechanical cues (e.g., stretch, compression, shear) to organoids on the benchtop, with design choices that anticipate eventual integration into spaceflight-ready modules.
As a summer intern, you will work across disciplines (College of Life Sciences & Institute for Space) alongside doctoral research students to contribute to the end-to-end development of a first-generation mechanical loading system. This will include scoping requirements, designing biocompatible interfaces and fixtures, and planning for integration of closed-loop control and basic data acquisition. You’ll gain experience in CAD and rapid prototyping, embedded systems, sterile workflows, and assay-driven validation with organoid models. Beyond hands-on skills, you will gain valuable experience in cross-disciplinary research endeavours which epitomise the modern research environment and have the opportunity to contribute to an exciting new endeavour in a vital area of research informing the future of space tourism and extended space exploration.
BAN26 — Spacecraft Communications: Advanced SDR Testbed
Supervisor Team: Nigel Bannister, Piyal Samara-Ratna
Categories: Computational, Experimental
Location: Space Park Leicester
Spacecraft rely on robust radio frequency (RF) communication systems to transmit data and commands across vast distances. As missions become more complex, the need for flexible, reconfigurable communication solutions is growing. This project focuses on developing an advanced Software Defined Radio (SDR) testbed to explore and validate techniques for spacecraft RF communications.
The testbed will consist of two computer-based SDR systems—one acting as a transmitter and the other as a receiver—providing a versatile platform for experimentation. This facility will enable the development, demonstration, and testing of innovative communication protocols and signal processing methods under realistic conditions.
The intern will play a key role in building and configuring the SDR environment, implementing communication links, and evaluating system performance. Tasks may include coding for SDR platforms, designing and testing modulation schemes, and analysing data from transmission experiments. This is an excellent opportunity for a student interested in spacecraft systems, RF engineering, and hands-on experimentation with cutting-edge communication technologies.
We are looking for an intern with programming experience (e.g., Python, C++), familiarity with signal processing concepts, and an interest in radio communications. Prior exposure to SDR frameworks, such as GNU Radio or similar, would be a strong advantage.
BRI26 — Lunar Impact Processes Recorded in Lunar Meteorites
Supervisor team: John Bridges, Lukas Adam, Leon Hicks
Categories: Experimental
Location: Campus (Physics), Space Park Leicester
Planetary Materials research at the University of Leicester involves analysis, with a wide range of microscopy-based analytical techniques, of meteorites and samples returned from missions to asteroids and comets, the Moon, and ultimately Mars. Every year we hold one or two RAS and SURE-funded Planetary Materials internships to help develop some aspects of our research and instrumentation.
The student(s) will be trained in the use of electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and X-ray Tomography with the aim of characterising the effects of impact processes recorded in samples of the Moon’s crust — lunar meteorites. Hypervelocity impacts on planetary surfaces leave a range of mineralogical changes at the submicron to macroscopic scales. These include veining, melting and minerals formed at high pressures. The project will be a new study of some recent lunar meteorites. Characterising the formation conditions of impact features will in turn help us to better understand the nature of the lunar regolith and crust, as the planetary science community starts to prepare for a new era of lunar exploration.
This internship is suitable for students interested in an interdisciplinary type of experimental space science project.
CAR26 — Preparing for BepiColombo: Investigating Salts on Mercury Through X-Ray Fluorescence in the Laboratory
Supervisor team: Julia Cartwright, Simon Lindsay, Natasha Carr
Categories: Experimental, Data Analysis
Location: Space Park Leicester, Campus (Physics)
The strange and surprising volatile content of Mercury’s surface, revealed following NASA’s MESSENGER mission, has brought into question long-established concepts in terms of its formation. With the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission on the approach to Mercury, performing laboratory-based analyses of salts (materials rich in volatile elements) will provide key information about the planet’s surface. BepiColombo carries the Mercury Imaging X-ray Spectrometer (MIXS) instrument, which was designed and built at the University of Leicester. MIXS will study Mercury’s surface composition by measuring fluorescent X-rays, excited by the Sun. We have assembled a unique laboratory at Space Park Leicester that features two Mercury-focused facilities: 1) The Ground Reference Facility, which incorporates the MIXS flight spare, and uses the same technique to measure composition in a simulated Mercury environment; 2) The Electron Impact Facility, which will explore the effects of electron bombardment and associated X-ray emissions, for studies on Mercury’s night-side.
With the science phase of the emission commencing imminently, the UoL MIXS team members are laying the foundation for mission success. This internship offers the student an opportunity to collaborate with the team, and be part of this work. The intern will help us to create and analyse ‘salty’ Mercury analogues, alongside using X-ray models developed in-house. We will explore different salt compositions, as well as investigate hydration states, with emphasis on exploring the effects on X-ray spectra. Given the broad range of experiments being performed, we are looking for someone studying for a degree in a STEM subject, with an interest in gaining experience with sample handling and analysis, alongside instrument and mission experience.
CHA26 — Exploring the Transient Universe with Low-Frequency Radio Telescopes
Supervisory team: Jaiverdhan Chauhan, Rhaana Starling
Categories: Data Analysis
Location: Campus (Physics)
Over the past few decades, the study of transient astrophysical phenomena has become a central theme in astronomy. These short-lived events arise from energetic processes such as accretion, explosions, and particle acceleration in extreme gravitational and magnetic environments. They occur both within our Galaxy and beyond, including sources such as X-ray binaries, magnetars, supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, tidal disruption events, and gravitational-wave counterparts.
While high-energy (X-ray and gamma-ray) and optical transients are routinely discovered through all-sky monitoring facilities, radio transients remain comparatively underexplored. This is largely due to the historical lack of sensitive, wide-field radio telescopes. However, new low-frequency arrays such as LOFAR and the Murchison Widefield Array have dramatically improved our ability to detect faint and fast-evolving radio transients.
In this project, the student will be introduced to the fundamentals of radio astronomy and radio data analysis. They will work with radio images in FITS format to search for transient and variable sources using modern detection software. The project will then focus on characterizing the physical nature of detected transients by combining radio measurements with multi-wavelength data from optical and X-ray surveys.
This project offers hands-on experience with real astronomical data and provides an opportunity to contribute to the growing field of time-domain and multi-messenger astrophysics.
COX26 — A Determination of the Transmission of Water Vapour in the Far-Infrared
Supervisor: Daniel Coxon, Jeremy Harrison
Category: Data Analysis
Location: Space Park Leicester
The upcoming FORUM mission will measure, for the first time, the Earth’s outgoing longwave radiation in the far-infrared at high spectral resolution. This spectral region is responsible for over half of the Earth’s radiative emission to space, with water vapour being one of the principal atmospheric absorbers. The interpretation of data from FORUM relies heavily on the accuracy of underlying spectral line parameters, which can be found in spectroscopic databases such as HITRAN. New high-resolution spectra of water vapour recorded at synchrotron light facilities have recently been analysed using a multispectrum fitting program called Labfit to produce new and improved spectroscopic line parameters.
The benefit of Labfit over a database such as HITRAN is that it provides both parameter uncertainties and correlations between the parameters. This information can be used to determine the uncertainties of calculated water vapour transmission for any values of temperature and pressure as a function of wavenumber. This improves upon the typical approach to uncertainties in the atmospheric community, in which spectral line parameters are varied to see how much the transmission changes, ignoring the correlations and producing larger effects than is reasonable. The successful candidate will use Labfit to calculate transmission, write programs to extract data from the output files, and use these to derive the uncertainty as a function of wavenumber.
EYL26 — Finding Fast and Hidden Explosions with the Swift Satellite
Supervisors: Rob Eyles-Ferris, Phil Evans
Categories: Computational, Data Analysis
Location: Campus (Physics)
Fast X-ray transients (FXTs) are mysterious bursts of X-rays lasting hundreds to thousands of seconds. While the origins of some have been traced to the deaths of massive stars in some of the most powerful explosions in the Universe, others have unknown progenitors. The population of FXTs remains small, with the majority detected by the recent Einstein Probe mission, but it is likely that a significant sample are hidden in historical data from other X-ray satellites such as the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory (Swift). Expanding the sample of FXTs will help determine where they originate and unveil the extreme physics underlying them.
In this project, you will search for FXTs in the vast dataset accumulated by Swift over its twenty-one-year mission. Using tools developed by the Swift team at the University of Leicester, you will identify rapidly evolving sources consistent with FXT behaviour and explore their properties in both the Swift data and data from other instruments.
HON26 — Development of a Swing-Arm Profilometer for Free-Form Surface Measurement in Laser Fusion Applications
Supervisor team: Hongyu Li, Guoyu Yu
Categories: Experimental, Data Analysis
Location: Space Park Leicester
Laser fusion uses powerful lasers to initiate nuclear fusion and promises nearly limitless energy. The National Ignition Facility is a prominent example of this technology. Achieving fusion, however, requires extreme precision and highly optimized system designs. High-accuracy free-form optics are a key enabling technology, as they precisely control and shape the laser beams. Manufacturing and measuring free-form surfaces with high accuracy demands innovative solutions due to their geometric diversity and complexity. These challenges are further amplified by the requirement to measure free-form surfaces to sub-10 nm accuracy, which remains beyond the current state of the art. The primary objective of the project is to develop advanced fabrication processes and metrology techniques to produce complex free-form optics with unprecedented quality.
In this project, the intern will work on the development of a novel Swing Arm Profilometer (SAP). The student(s) will be trained in the principles of optical metrology, including interferometry, profilometry, and confocal probing technology. They will also receive hands-on training with advanced optical metrology instruments such as an interferometer, profilometer, and SAP system. Key tasks include: 1) Data analysis, including data acquisition and processing, uncertainty analysis, sensitivity analysis, repeatability analysis, error budget analysis; 2) Experimental testing, including surface form measurement, repeatability testing, sensitivity testing and environmental testing.
JOY26 — Developing Artificial Intelligence for Exploration of Mars
Supervisors: Simon Joyce, Dikshita Meggi
Categories: Computational, Data Analysis
Location: Campus (Physics)
Spacecraft orbiting Mars are returning data on the plasma environment and atmospheric properties at an unprecedented rate. Detailed knowledge of the ionosphere is important for radio communications with surface rovers and for radar scanning below the surface to look for water. The huge variety and quantity of data available presents many opportunities for discoveries. However, traditional analysis techniques are too slow to take full advantage of the data available. New techniques being developed in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning may be adapted to the study of Mars.
We have started development of an AI-based tool which can analyse data from the Mars Express spacecraft. The main aim of the project will be to test the performance of the AI and then use it to carry out scientific analysis of a large dataset. The project will suit someone who is creative, methodical and interested in learning about programming and the AI development process. Some experience with Python would be very beneficial.
POV26 — Smoke and Mirrors: Monitoring particulate pollution with EarthCARE
Supervisors: Adam Povey, Sonymol VK
Categories: Data Analysis
Location: Space Park Leicester
Aerosols are particles and droplets suspended in the atmosphere such as dust blown from deserts, wildfire smoke, or sulphuric acid released by industry and volcanoes. They directly alter the Earth’s energy budget when haze scatters sunlight and, as the seeds of cloud droplet formation, aerosols change the properties of clouds, producing the most uncertain human-driven feedback on climate. These tiny particles endanger human health when inhaled but are a major source of nutrients for plants in tropical oceans and rainforests. Distinguishing between different types of particle is necessary to correctly predict the impacts that aerosol will have on a community or environment, but this is a challenging measurement problem as many physical properties of aerosols do not affect how they scatter light.
Launched last year, EarthCARE is the European Space Agency’s platform to study aerosols, clouds, and precipitation. This UK-led mission is the first time that a radar, lidar, visible imager, and a broadband radiometer have been flown on a single platform, providing unprecedented ability to monitor how particles and droplets impact the flow of energy through the environment. In particular, EarthCARE caries the first high-spectral-resolution lidar in orbit, which can isolate the scattering of particles from that of gases. This project is one of the first opportunities to use this unique dataset to study our atmosphere.
You will investigate the evolution of the aerosol environment over a major city, investigating how the combination of different instruments can resolve ambiguities in aerosol type detection in order to attribute sources to the aerosols observed. The student will use Python to manipulate and combine environmental data records, perform spatial/time-series analyses, and validate results against reference observations. These skills are widely used in the environmental and physical sciences, medicine, finance, and other quantative fields.
SPA26 — Ice Impacts: Decoding Sensor Signals and Investigating Shock Alteration of Organic Material
Supervisors: Vassilia Spathis, Rebecca Cordell
Categories: Experimental
Location: Space Park Leicester
The characterisation of impactors is an important part of mission reconnaissance and the mapping of the space environment, such as for the protection of satellites and other assets from space debris, as well as for missions interested in particle capture (e.g., plume sampling). PVDF sensors attached to Kapton films have been used to ‘listen’ for impacts and determine parameters such as particle impact velocity and trajectory, but sub-mm particles remain largely unstudied, along with ice grains. With missions such as the European Space Agency’s L4 mission to Enceladus focusing on ice grain/plume sampling, exploring ways to non-destructively characterise such parameters for ice impactors in situ is becoming increasingly relevant. Odin Space Ltd have been developing sensors to measure the flux of space debris in low Earth orbit, with part of their ongoing R&D programme focusing on characterising impacts from small impactors (~100 μm). As part of a longstanding collaboration, this sensor technology will be used to perform impact experiments using sub-mm ice and ice-organic/dust projectiles, to determine whether impactor parameters can be measured from these populations of low-density particles. The projectiles from these experiments will also be retrieved to assess the chemical composition of intact vs. fired projectiles and investigate any alteration to the organic content due to the effects experienced during impact.
This interdisciplinary project is co-supervised by the School of Physics & Astronomy and the School of Chemistry, and consists of two parts: (i) foil and sensor data analysis, and (ii) captured projectile chemical analysis. As part of (i), the student will analyse the sensor signals and Kapton foils from the impact experiments previously performed off-site to provide reference data for small ice impactors. The data will compare between pure ice, and an ice-organic/meteoritic dust mixture to look at changes in the signal. For (ii), the student will analyse the retrieved projectiles from these experiments to look at any changes in the organic composition. This will be done primarily through use of the Raman spectrometer in the School of Chemistry for the analysis of insoluble organic matter embedded in craters vs. unshocked material, as well as by using the Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry facilities at Space Park Leicester to look at the soluble organic matter composition for any samples of interest.
WAT26 — Investigating a New Method to Make Radioisotope Fuel for Space Nuclear Power Systems: Novel Nitrate Mixing (using non-radioactive simulants)
Supervision Team: Emily Jane Watkinson, Fabrizio Ortu
Categories: Experimental
Location: Space Park Leicester, Campus (Chemistry)
The exploration of dark and distant locations of our solar system requires the use of alternative electrical power supplies to solar array power, namely, the use of radioisotope power systems such as radioisotope thermoelectric generators. These convert the heat generated by a radioactive oxide fuel into electrical power. Many space missions have been enabled using this kind of power supply including Voyager, New Horizons and Mars 2020.
In this project, you will be trained in how to use a specialised mixing apparatus. You will mix simulant nitrate materials and vary the conditions of the mixing process. You will heat the mixture at high temperatures and then assess if this novel method has created simulants for mixed oxide fuels. You will be trained in how to use analyse samples using powder X-ray diffraction and Scanning Electron Microscopy and Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy. This internship is also relevant to civil nuclear power sector and is a great opportunity to gain relevant skills.
Due to the nature of this work, there is an additional requirement that applicants be an UK or EU national.
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