The Arecibo Remote Command Center

Transcription

1 The Arecibo Remote Command Center Fredrick Jenet, Andy Miller, Richard Price, Adrienne Zermeno, Alma Miller, Teviet Creighton, Matthew Benacquista, Joseph Romano, Volker Quetschke Abstract The Arecibo Remote Command Center program is an integrated education and research experience for high school, undergraduate, and graduate students. Leveraging the unique properties of the Arecibo Radio Observatory, this new model for STEM education turned a department that was graduating one student every two years into one of the leading producers of hispanic physics majors in the nation. This paper describes the many facets of the program, its development, and its successes. Introduction The Arecibo Remote Command Center (ARCC), a program run by the Center for Advanced Radio Astronomy (CARA) at the University of Texas at Brownsville (UTB), is a new model of education that uses radio astronomy to attract, train, and retain students into STEM fields. In 2006, ARCC brought the world s largest and most sensitive radio telescope, the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center s Arecibo radio telescope, to South Texas. The idea was to attract local students into serious research by enabling them to play a role in Arecibo-related science. Now, the ARCC program has become one of the top producers of Hispanic physics majors in the United States (webcaspar.nsf.gov). The ARCC students control many of the world s major radio telescopes in addition to Arecibo including the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank radio telescope, the Long Wavelength Array, and the Effelesberg Radio Telescope. The students are responsible for the discovery of over 50 radio pulsars, including a double neutron star system, one of only ten ever discovered. In addition, the ARCC program is being replicated at other universities across the US and Puerto Rico. The paper describes many of the aspects of the ARCC program that are responsible for its success. The program aims to create leaders in science and technology. It provides the students with real world challenges, shows them how their work fits into the bigger picture of human discovery and advancement, empowers them to take ownership and responsibility, and gives them the support they need to succeed. In an effort to help the reader understand the context for the ARCC program s development we first present a brief overview of UTB and its department of Physics and Astronomy, ARCC s home department. Next, many of the aspects of the program are described in detail, including our formative and summative assessment methods. Afterwards, we describe the program s hallmarks of success. In closing, we discuss the possible future for the program. Background: UTB and the Department of Physics and Astronomy The ARCC program was developed at UTB s department of Physics and Astronomy. UTB is a minority serving institution. The community from which it draws most of its students is overwhelmingly (93% in 2010 census) Hispanic. Brownsville is located in South Texas, which is one of the poorest regions in the US and has one of the lowest percentages of college educated people ( Thus, Brownsville offered almost no role models for STEM careers.

2 In this context, UTB s Department of Physics and Astronomy is somewhat of an anomaly. It was formed at the turn of the millennium, prior to which it was one of several elements of a single Physical Sciences Department. Over the next few years, the department secured several large federal grants, which, in turn, created the NASA Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy (CGWA) and attracted top level researchers and post-doctoral scholars, including the team that went on to develop the ARCC program. Through cooperative programs with PhD granting institutions, the department hosted many graduate students, most of whom were not local. Although the research and graduate programs in the Department were operating at a Tier 1 level, it was difficult to attract local students into the undergraduate program. At that time, the Department was awarding, on average, only one undergraduate degree every two years. The elements of the ARCC program in detail In 2006, the ARCC program was created with the intent to attract high school and undergraduate students into the Department by getting them involved in the ongoing research at the Arecibo radio observatory. This very successful idea has blossomed into a multifaceted program, providing the students with many opportunities for professional growth. The various aspects of the ARCC program are described in this section. By design, the ARCC program shares the excitement felt by seasoned researchers with students just learning the basics of science in general. The students involved in the program are actively involved in research experiences typically reserved for graduate students and postdocs. The students are closely mentored by top-level physics and astronomy research professors, and they are organized into teams that enable a strong peer mentoring network. The success of the ARCC program cannot be attributed to one single activity, but rather to an ensemble of programs and activities, each of which provides students with opportunities for professional growth. The ARCC program s most notable feature is the ARCC Room, a fully operational command and control room for the world s largest and most sensitive radio telescopes. The design of the ARCC Room resembles a science-fiction starship bridge, with several large computer displays, workstations arranged in a ring, and an observation window. The ARCC Room has proven to be important to the program in several ways. Its striking visual appeal draws the interest of passersby, making it a recruiting and outreach tool by its very presence. The computational facilities are used by students performing observations and research activities. The room also serves as a home base on campus for all students in the program: a place where they can gather for group meetings, telescope observations, study groups, or socializing, which enhances the peer support aspect of the program. The students are naturally at the heart of the ARCC program. There are four primary ways in which students can be involved: Scholars, Graduate Students, Tyros, and Volunteers. ARCC Scholars are the core group within the ARCC program. These students commit to developing their own research project while pursuing a demanding academic program of study: completing a Bachelors degree in 4 years, a Masters degree in one additional year, all the while maintaining a high academic standing. In return these students receive tuition and a stipend for living expenses. ARCC Graduate Students are other Masters and PhD students working in ARCC related research. The ARCC Tyros program was designed to extend the benefits of the ARCC Scholars to a wider range of students, those not ready or able to commit to the full

3 responsibilities of being an ARCC Scholar. ARCC Tyros assist and participate in various research activities, while benefitting from ARCC s mentoring and peer support network. ARCC Volunteers are students that actively participate in ARCC projects, but are not being funded by the program. Many ARCC Volunteers are high school students, brought in by the ARCC s summer academy (below) and other outreach activities; others are undergraduates lured by ARCC s growing reputation. Meaningful student research is the key to the success of the ARCC program. The main educational goal of the ARCC program can be summarized as follows: to provide a graduatelevel research experience to undergraduate students. Students are involved in meaningful research from the day they start in the program, beginning with basic activities that provide necessary training, and progressing to more advanced individual research projects. The field of radio astronomy provides accessible scalable projects that can allow any number of new students to participate and make meaningful contributions, particularly in the search for exotic stars known as radio pulsars. Radio pulsar surveys produce copious amounts of data containing putative pulsar candidates. Information on each candidate is distilled into a few simple graphs, and students can be trained to apply human pattern recognition to sort likely pulsars from various types of noise. In addition, students remotely operate the largest radio telescopes in the world, conducting surveys and following up candidates. In the process, students learn advanced radio technology and astrophysics topics even in their first year, while contributing to a significant scientific project: to date, the ARCC students have discovered 55 radio pulsars, including the tenth known double neutron star system, as well as several other pulsars that are suitable for inclusion in pulsar timing arrays, used for testing Einstein s general theory of relativity. Every student must participate in an individual research project which will ultimately become their senior undergraduate thesis topic. When a student first enters the program, they participate in the above described pulsar surveys. After two years, they are expected to be working directly with a faculty mentor on an individual project. While many continue in radio astronomy, this is not a requirement, and students may work with any faculty in the physics department conducting research in areas as diverse as nanotechnology or gravitational-wave astronomy. Professional development for students is closely tied to their research experience. Students travel to national and international conferences to present their research and make contacts within the international research community. Many ARCC students are co-mentored by professional researchers at other leading research institutions and organizations including Caltech, Cornell, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Naval Research Laboratory, the NAIC, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and others. Public speaking skills are also strongly emphasized: every student must make a 10-minute presentation on their work at an ARCC research symposium each semester, and receives individual guidance and feedback from faculty and other students. Students also make shorter presentations at intervals throughout the semester. At the end of their undergraduate and graduate programs they must also submit a written research thesis. Outreach activities include the ARCC research symposium (above), frequent presentations at local high schools, and, most importantly, a three-week astronomy summer academy for high

4 school students. In addition to typical summer school activities such as camping and stargazing, summer school students also see presentations by faculty and ARCC Scholars about astronomy and astrophysics, and get to work with ARCC students on their research activities, including searching for radio pulsars. ARCC students have been playing an increasing role in organizing and working with high school students during this program, and it has been the source of many recruits. Team structure was introduced with the third cohort of ARCC Scholars, and has proven to be an inspired approach to maintaining strong mentoring and research as the program expands. Teams consist of at least four students, one of whom is the team leader. Team leaders are typically students who have had several years of experience working in the program and have demonstrated potential leadership ability and a dedication to the success of the program. Team leaders make sure that their team members learn how to observe and analyze the resulting data, participate in observations, keep up with mandatory ARCC related activities which include the analysis of radio pulsar data, the participation in individual research projects, and the attendance of weekly meetings. Every week, the director of the ARCC program meets with the team leaders to discuss the progress of all students and projects in the program, organize observing sessions, plan high school outreach events and other ARCC related activities. The ARCC Executive Committee (AEC) oversees the entire program. It is made up of six faculty and three staff members who are dedicated to the success of the students as well as to promoting science in the region. The range of skills and backgrounds of the people that make up the AEC is rather unique. The AEC faculty members are tier-1 equivalent research faculty, who publish in major research journals, are members of national and international research consortia, and are highly successful at securing federal research funds. One of the staff members is a local high school teacher that started the first high school level astronomy course to be taught in the Lower Rio Grande valley. Another is a UTB alumna from the Department of Physics and Astronomy who has experienced the undergraduate Physics program and knows, from a student s perspective, how to navigate the UTB bureaucracy. The third staff member is a former political advisor with a wealth of information and experience in working with the community and governments at regional and national levels. Each member contributes substantial time and effort to mentoring students, evaluating their success and emotional wellbeing, monitoring the overall health of the program, performing outreach activities, and adjusting the program as issues arise. Radio Astronomy and Radio Frequency Technologies make up the main focus of the program. Radio technology plays a key role in modern industry. Everything from smart-phones to microwave ovens, from satellite communications to personal tracking, from high-end computing to Earth remote sensing, involves radio frequency technology. Meanwhile, astronomy is a compelling subject for people from all ages and walks of life, as demonstrated by the popularity of astronomy and space magazines and the large number of astronomy clubs and amateur astronomers. ARCC combines the allure of astronomy with the practical aspects of radio technology to attract students into the program and retain them in STEM fields. The strong research focus helps to create a community of students all working in similar areas. The Friends of ARCC is a community group whose mission is to promote the activities of the ARCC program to the local and regional communities. This group helps our students and faculty

5 connect with officials at local high schools in order to plan recruiting events. They also organize the yearly ARCC graduation ceremony. This event honors the graduating class, educates the community about the ARCC program, and helps to raise funds for the program. Past graduation keynote speakers were Bob Kerr, director of the Arecibo Observatory, and Anne Chinnery, director of launch operations and safety at SpaceX. Assessment The progress of the students, both in coursework and research, is continually monitored through several different routes. The first is via the peer network created by the team structure. Each team leader meets on a regular basis with their team members not only to train them in observations and data analysis, but also to guide them as they advance in the program. Each week, the team leaders meet together with the director of the program to review research progress and other ARCC related activities, and report on the progress of team members. The more senior students are all working on individual research projects and hence are meeting on a regular basis with faculty and staff mentors. Every week, the AEC meets to discuss the overall progress of all students. At the start of each meeting, each student is reviewed. If any problems arise concerning grades, research, or morale, remedies are discussed and an implementation plan is developed. The weekly AEC meetings comprise the ARCC s formative evaluation program. The ARCC s summative evaluation is based on standard student success metrics including: time to degree completion, graduation rates, and post-graduation activities. As of the time of writing, the ARCC program graduated two cohorts of five students over the previous two years, making ARCC one of the nation s top producers of Hispanic students with degrees in physics. All ten graduates completed their bachelor s degree in four years and are now pursuing higher level degrees in astronomy and astrophysics. In addition to these students, there are 20 more in the pipeline, on track for graduation. One of the ARCC students was hired by the Arecibo Observatory before graduating, and will be finishing his degree online while at the observatory. The first ARCC PhD student recently completed his degree and was hired as a post-doctoral scholar at the Long Wavelength Array in New Mexico. It is interesting to note that three recent ARCC alumni each submitted observing proposals (as the principal investigator) to major facilities before they started their first semester in graduate school; and each was granted the requested time. In one case, more time was given than had been requested. Furthermore, colleagues are actively trying to recruit our ARCC students to join their Ph.D. programs. Hallmarks of Success The current graduation rates achieved by the ARCC program successfully place UTB as one of the top five producers of Hispanic physicists in the nation. The success of ARCC led to the creation of a new center focused on radio astronomy known as the Center for Advanced Radio Astronomy (CARA). ARCC is an anchor program in CARA together with several other projects including the Low Frequency All Sky Monitor (LoFASM) and the Spacecraft Tracking and Astrophysical Research into Gigahertz Astronomical Transient Emission (STARGATE) complex.

6 In addition, a major sign of its success is the fact that the program is being replicated at other universities. Shortly after the start of the program at UTB, a pilot spin-off program was started at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (UWM) in collaboration with Jean Creighton and Xavier Siemens. Focusing on pulsar candidate viewing and remote observing, the UWM program has introduced several cohorts of students to pulsar related research. Students at UWM ARCC are responsible for 12 pulsar discoveries. This year, the ARCC program is further developing its export model. Organized and implemented primarily by the ARCC team leaders, two more ARCC programs are being created at Franklin & Marshall College, in collaboration with Frownfield Crawford and Andrea Lommen, and at the University of Puerto Rico, Humacao, in collaboration with Anthony Ford and Rafael Muller. Summary and Looking Forward ARCC is a young program with an impressive story to tell. It has established itself as a successful model to recruit and retain students, especially underrepresented minorities, in STEM fields. The first two graduating cohorts of the ARCC Scholars program have placed it among the top 10 producers of Hispanic physicists in the US, and the flow of students in the pipeline suggests considerable future impact. New student research opportunities are continually being developed. The creation of the LoFASM, a radio telescope array created at CARA, further developed and deployed by the ARCC students, and distributed across the US, has added an instrumentation development component to the ARCC program. More recently, ARCC has started collaborating with the Palomar Transient Factory to include optical astronomy in its portfolio of student opportunities. Unprecedented changes are occurring in South Texas that will strengthen the ARCC program and allow it to influence a wider range of students in the region. In July 2013, UT approved the guiding principles for a new tier-1 research university merging UTB and UT Pan American to serve the entire South Texas region. The new institution, referred to as the University of Texas in the Rio Grande Valley, is expected to enroll approximately 28,000 students. According to the National Association of Latino Elected Officials, [The] new university will become the 2ndlargest Hispanic-serving institution in the country and the 1st for Hispanic undergraduate students [1]. As a result of the merger process, the ARCC program has been recognized by the UT System Chancellor as playing a major role in creating a culture of research in the South Texas region, and, as such, will play a major role in the development of this new university. The ARCC model promises to be one of the most effective instruments in bringing rapid student success in research, education, and leadership development in the UT System and other universities. ARCC has the opportunity to share challenges faced, solutions tried, and lessons learned among participating universities and institutions to create an effective remote ARCC model. As ARCC continues to evolve, the Arecibo Observatory will always play a major role in the ARCC student experiences. In this way, ARCC has the potential to be the face of the Observatory on the mainland, allowing more and more students to be actively engaged in Arecibo science and inspiring them to become the next generation of leaders in science.