REU Site: Frontier Research and Training in Astronomy for the 21st Century

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This award is for the establishment of a new REU site in Astronomy at the University of Texas (UT Austin). The site will take advantage of the strong connection between the Astronomy department and the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), the Texas Institute for Discovery Education in Science, and the McDonald Observatory to provide a wide range of research topics and professional development opportunities for participants. UT Austin will host 8 participants per year for 10 weeks summer internships, with emphasis placed on recruiting from underrepresented groups and colleges with limited opportunities for astrophysical research.The eight student participants will conduct research in the areas of planetary astronomy, stellar formation and evolution, galactic astronomy, cosmology, and instrumentation. The participants will also be trained in modern computing techniques at TACC, and will have the opportunity to perform observations using the facilities at the McDonald Observatory.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.