Gemini Staff Mentor Undergraduates

Bryan Miller reviews an astronomical image with REU intern Samuel Castle, at the Gemini South Base Facility in La Serena, Chile.

Gemini’s science staff have a long-history of mentoring students participating in the REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) and the PIA ( Práctica en Investigación en Astronomía) programs in a partnership with the Cerro-Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile. The examples on this page highlight recent intern/mentor-ships at Gemini South.

Gemini staff astronomer Bryan Miller helps develop a new generation of scientists by mentoring Samuel Castle, a senior mathematics major from Davidson College in Davidson, NC. Samuel and Bryan are developing algorithms used to detect shells of stars around elliptical galaxies which are thought to result from recent galaxy mergers.

Alex Gagliano (foreground) works with his mentor Juan Madrid in his is pursuit of a career in astrophysics. Alex looks forward to someday conducting research and teaching at a university.

Also at Gemini South, Science Fellow Juan Madrid, guides Alex Gagliano in cataloging and characterizing globular clusters, ultra-diffuse galaxies, and ultra-compact dwarf galaxy candidates in the Coma Cluster using data from the Hubble Space Telescope. Alex is a sophomore at Virginia Tech with a double major in computer science and computational mathematics, and a minor in physics.