CAREER: Tools for Training Students in Astronomical Instrumentation and Research

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This award supports a career development plan that will integrate research programs that produce and use state-of -the-art astronomical instrumentation with University of North Carolina's (UNC) mission to train graduate and undergraduate students in observational astronomy. The main educational objective is to develop, over a 5 year period, a set of pedagogical hardware and software tools that will allow students in observational astronomy to deepen their understanding through direct experimentation with working instrumentation and reduction software. The second objective is to fund graduate and undergraduate student participation in ongoing research programs that involve producing new and innovative astronomical instrumentation.Funds provided in this award will also support ongoing research programs that involve innovative instrumentation. These include seismological studies of white dwarf stars and investigations of the mass-radius relation on the lower main sequence. The former will make use of the state-of-the-art spectrograph under construction at UNC and the second will employ an automated telescope and camera already built and deployed. Both of these projects involve graduate students in the development of astronomical instrumentation.