Program details:

• Ten weeks
• Stipend $7,000
• Travel, housing, meals provided

Application deadline:
February 3 - March 3
(offers made on a rolling basis during this window).

Program dates:
May 26 - Aug 1

Research Experiences for Undergraduates
Summer 2025

Vanderbilt University
Physics & Astronomy

Research Projects: Astrophysics

Computational Simulations of Black Hole Formation
(Prof. Kelly Holley-Bockelmann)
We will use high resolution N-body simulations and numerical models to understand how black holes grow within galaxies. Projects for REU students will include calculating the gravitational wave signal from merging supermassive black holes, modeling black holes in triaxial galaxies, and studying the effect of isolation on black hole growth.

Star Formation and Extrasolar Planets
(Prof. Keivan Stassun)
The Stassun group is conducting observational studies to understand the birth of stars and to search for planets around other stars. The star formation research includes time-series photometric studies of young stars in a variety of star-forming regions in order to characterize the evolution of the stars' angular momenta and also to search for eclipsing binary stars with which to measure the fundamental properties of newly formed stars. The exoplanets research includes searches for signals of "transiting" planets through the examination of data streaming from Vanderbilt's Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) in South Africa as well as radial-velocity data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey's APOGEE project. An observing run in Chile is possible. Other projects involve Vanderbilt's participation in the NASA TESS mission.

Data Visualization and Discovery: Understanding the Cognitive Basis of Scientific Insight in Astronomy
(Prof. Maithilee Kunda and Prof. Keivan Stassun)
In this project, we are investigating exploratory data visualization in astronomy: how astronomers work through big data and visualization tools to find interesting new patterns. Our goal is to understand how humans explore visual encoded data until the “aha” moment happens. This project is part of a current collaboration with Prof. Keivan Stassun, in the department of Physics and Astronomy at Vanderbilt, whose team made the “visually inspired” discovery about stellar flicker that was published in Nature (https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2013/08/21/surface-gravity-of-stars).

Multi-messenger Gravitational-wave Astrophysics
(Prof. Steve Taylor)
The VIPER (Vanderbilt Initiative in Probes of Extreme Relativity) group includes two recently hired astrophysicists who are leading Vanderbilt's efforts in this area of direct relevance to NSF's Windows on the Universe Big Idea, supported in part by a new NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) award. The highly relativistic dynamics of systems of massive compact objects like neutron stars and black holes create ripples in the fabric of spacetime. These ripples are gravitational waves (GWs), a prediction of Einstein's 1915 General Theory of Relativity. A prediction that is now fact. Gravitational waves are a window onto the warped side of the Universe, allowing us to glimpse Black Holes and test fundamental physics. This work includes a major thrust in Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) research. PTAs function as a Galaxy-sized detector web that is sensitive to the most massive black holes in the Universe, 10⁸-10¹⁰ times larger than what LIGO can see. PTAs such as NANOGrav (an NSF Physics Frontiers Center) have observed more than 70 pulsars over the last 10-15 years. Projects with VIPER and its NANOGrav collaborators include astrophysical model-building and developing new statistical approaches to nanohertz gravitational-wave searches. This is also an area that lends itself to experience with science communications, given the high public interest.

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