Reports and Deadlines
Three Week Report
Due to Gwen via email by 5PM on Tuesday, July 9th
The purpose of this report is to:
- practice your scientific writing
- facilitate communication with your mentor(s) about your project
- help you to develop a "game plan" for the summer
- clarify in your mind the reason you are working on your project and how that fits into the broader scientific goals of your field of inquiry.
This report should be typed, 2-3 pages. Please include:
- a title, your name, and the name of your mentor(s)
- an introduction with some of the background information about your project. What is the motivation for your project?
- a discussion of your project: What are the questions you'll be trying to answer? Why are those questions interesting? How do they fit into the background information in the introduction.
- a discussion of the progress you have made so far and any difficulties you are having currently or expect to encounter.
Please include references in the text and a references/works cited section at the end. You should be in contact with your mentor about this report, and you should send a copy of it to them for comments and implement their comments in advance of the deadline. If you are a Caltech SURF student, please also turn in the report to the SURF office as they request.
Joint Diversity, Equity, and Inclusions Presentations
Group Assignments Tuesday, July 16
Paper approval Deadline Monday, July 22nd. Please submit your selected paper for approval to Brenna Mockler, Nicole Sanchez, and Gwen Rudie via email by 5PM.
Paper presentations Friday, July 26th
Students will be split into four groups of 3-4 students to present a topic related to diversity, equity, and/or inclusion from the literature. Each group will select a paper/article or group of papers/articles on one topic that interests them, submit the papers/articles for approval to Brenna Mockler, Nicole Sanchez, and Gwen Rudie by Monday, July 22nd, and then prepare to present the topic and moderate a discussion with the rest of the interns. Presentations will occur on Friday July 26th These presentations will be facilitated by Brenna, Nicole, and Gwen, but will be led by the individual groups. Each topic will be presented for 10 minutes and discussed for 10 minutes. A list of possible articles to be discussed is linked here, but this list is not exhaustive, and groups are encouraged to search for materials that they find engaging and synthesize information from multiple sources.
Project Description for CASSI Website
Due to Gwen and Natasha Metzler by 5PM on Friday, July 26th
(1) Your name, year in school, and school.
(2) A short few-sentence general project description
(3) Why you wanted to join us at Carnegie for the CASSI program
(4) Your favorite part about the summer program so far.
American Astronomical Society (AAS) Abstract and Title
Due to Gwen via email and your advisor(s) by 5PM on Friday, August 2
This is a draft title and abstract which you can update as needed throughout the program and then submit to the AAS this fall to apply to give a poster presentation at their January 2025 meeting which will be in National Harbor, MD. Your abstract and title must meet AAS standards (taken from their webpage).
"The abstract body text can be a maximum of 2,250 characters (which includes letters, numbers, punctuation, spacing, returns, and symbols/special characters.)"
There will be an abstract writing workshop on Monday, July 29 that will cover more tips about writing an abstract. Please have your advisor review a draft of the abstract before you submit the final copy to Gwen.
Draft AAS Poster
Due to Gwen 4PM on Wednesday, August 14th
A draft of your AAS Poster is due on August 14th so you will be ready for a practice presentation on Friday, August 16th. Remember that most of the content of this poster is the same as what will be in your final symposium talk. A poster workshop about designing and presenting scientific results with posters will be given Thursday, August 8th to help you begin the process of assembling a poster draft. You will be able to make revisions to this poster before you present it at the AAS.
The AAS requires all physical posters fit within a 44" x44" space. For the poster presentation at Carnegie, please design your posters to be no larger than 32"x40".
In case anyone is drawing a blank, here are some examples of posters for inspiration. Some good things to think about when making your poster (and also your final report and talk):
Content:
- How does your project fit into the wider subject area in astronomy?
- What question does your project address?
- Briefly describe your methods including discussing limitations and uncertainties in the analysis.
- Discuss results from your study and their implications for the question posed.
- What questions remain after this analysis or next steps would you envision to continue addressing the question posed.
Poster design:
- Try to design the order or format of the poster to flow with the logic of the problem.
- Plots and visualizations need to be sized correctly. All axes should be labeled (including units where appropriate). Other visualizations should be appropriately labeled.
- Captions for the figure should explain the figure clearly and should make a claim or provide a "take home point" for the poster viewer
- Section headings should be descriptive. For example: "Measuring the redshift of galaxies" rather than "Analysis"
Final Presentations
August 23rd
Final presentations of your research will be given during a symposium of the final day of the program. Presentations will be 10-12 minutes in length followed by 2-3 minutes of questions. Practice talks will be held on August 20th or 21st.
Final Report (Optional)
For those students who would like to practice their scientific writing, and for those whose school requires a report about their summer research (SURF), we will happily give you feedback on a final report. We'd also encourge interns to consider submitting a AAS Research Note.