This summer ICG played host to a record number of post-16 and undergraduate students, giving them the experience of real, hands on research in astrophysics, cosmology and gravitation.

We hosted students on three different schemes

• Nuffield Research Placements (which are open to students going into their final year of post-16 education)
• Ogden Trust Summer Internships (open to all Ogden Scholars)
• SEPNet Summer Placement Scheme (open to undergraduate students attending SEPNet Universities)

Here is the full list of projects:

Joe Hind (entering Upper 6th at South Downs College; Nuffield Science Bursary)
  “Exploring the morphologies of galaxies in single-band SDSS images” – supervised by Karen Masters

  Alex Todd (entering Y1 Bath University; Ogden Research Placement)
  “Quantifying the Effect of Image Depth on Morphological Classification of Galaxies” – supervised by Tom Melvin and Karen Masters

Peter Thomas (entering Y2 Lancaster University; Ogden Research Placement).
“Shape dependent Vainshtein screening in G^3 theories” – supervised by Matt Hull and Jeremy Sakstein.

Robert Vallance (entering Y4 University of Manchester; Ogden Research Placement)
  “Inflationary model selection confronted with neutrinos” – supervised by Thomas Tram and Vincent Vennin

Taniya Parikh (entering PhD programme at ICG Portsmouth; Ogden Research Placement)
“A fully dynamical calibration of the stellar-to-halo mass relation in disk galaxies” – supervised by Kyle Westfall

  Anna Laws (entering Y3 Southampton University; SEPNet Placement)
  “Power spectra of non-circular motions in disk galaxies” – supervised by Kyle Westfall

  Steve Cunnington (entering Y3 Southampton University; SEPNet Placement)
  “Measuring the expansion of the Universe with gravitational lensing of quasars.  Does it Matter if we cherry-pick the best lenses?” – supervised by Thomas Collett

  Sarunas Verena (entering Y4 Southampton University; SEPNet Placement)
“Cosmology in Alternate Gravity Theories” – supervised by Jeremy Sakstein

On Friday 4th September, the projects of students not staying on in Portsmouth were celebrated with our first ever, Summer Research Symposium. Open to all members of the ICG, this two hour symposium followed a typical format in science, with short talks followed by questions from the audience. Everyone who attended was impressed with the level of research on show, and the ICG Director, Bob Nichol said “I really enjoyed the talks and was amazing at the level of achievement and professionalism from all involved. The bar has been set high for next year!”

All of the students and supervisors who were able to attend are pictured below.

 

 

One of the students said of their summer placement “It has been a really really enjoyable experience and I am going to miss it here dearly. Such a friendly and welcoming environment.” The supervisors seemed to enjoy the experience this year too, with Jeremy Sakstein in particular encouraging any ICG member who is interested to get involved submit a project for next summer’s placements.