DMSS: a Dark Matter Summer School

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This award will provide support for DMSS (Dark Matter Summer School), a summer school dedicated only to dark matter. The school is geared towards junior graduate students and will have a few spots open for exceptional undergraduate students. The summer school will be held at the University at Albany, SUNY. It is foreseen to be held from July 16-20, 2018.The summer school will impact the community on three levels: minority students, high school students and the general public. Women and underrepresented minority students will be given a place of choice, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The organizers will promote diversity and encourage underrepresented minorities to pursue their studies in graduate schools by reaching out to women-only colleges, as well as historically black colleges and universities. DMSS will also contain an outreach component, allowing select high school students, at least one from an inner city high school, to come, take a tour of a research lab, attend student's talks, and discuss with both undergraduate, graduate students and lecturers to give them an idea of what a future in physics realistically looks like and hopefully convince them to go to college in physics. A public talk on dark matter is also scheduled to trigger the interest of both the public and the future generation of scientists.Astroparticle physics, specifically, the search for dark matter, is currently one of the most attractive research areas. However, not many universities, and even less liberal arts colleges, offer a particle physics class at the undergraduate level. In addition, universities who offer a graduate program in astroparticle physics tend not to have an astroparticle physics class offered every year. All the topics of this summer school will be related to dark matter and will encompass both experiment and theory, in order to attract students in both experimental and theoretical physics.