Students

Graduate Students

IPAC Visiting Graduate Fello​wship

IPAC announces the availability of six-month graduate student fellowships. The program is designed to allow students from other U.S. institutions to visit IPAC-Caltech and perform astronomical research in close association with an IPAC scientist. Eligible applicants are expected to have completed preliminary course work in their graduate program and be available for research during the period of the award. Funding from IPAC will be provided for a 6-month period via monthly stipends. Several students are expected to be accepted each year, subject to the availability of funding. Students are expected to be at IPAC during the duration of the Fellowship, nominally January to July, with some flexibility on the starting and ending dates.

Details about applying, deadline dates and research projects are described here: http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/page/graduate-fellowship.

For more information please contact the program coordinator, Dr. Jessie Christiansen.

Undergraduate Students

Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF) program

SURF students have the opportunity to conduct research under the guidance of experienced mentors working at the frontier of their fields. Students experience the process of research as a creative intellectual activity from beginning (defining and developing a project) to end (presenting their results at SURF Seminar Day).

• Students collaborate with a potential mentor to define and develop a project
• Applicants write research proposals as part of the application process
• Faculty review the proposals and recommend awards
• Students carry out the work over a 10-week period during the summer
• At the conclusion of the program, students submit a technical paper and give an oral presentation at one of several SURF Seminar Days, symposia modeled on a professional technical meeting.

In 2025, Fellows will receive a $7,950 award for the ten-week period. SURF is open to both Caltech and visiting students, with a preference given to students in the Caltech community.

For more information, see: https://sfp.caltech.edu/undergraduate-research/programs/surf.

Note that prospective students need to identify a suitable research mentor before beginning the application process. For information about the research interests of the IPAC Science staff, see the Science staff directory. For tips on finding a mentor at IPAC,  and at Caltech in general, please see: https://sfp.caltech.edu/undergraduate-research/getting-started/finding_a_mentor.

Wave Fellows

Caltech WAVE aims to foster diversity by increasing the participation of underrepresented students in science and engineering PhD programs and making Caltech's programs more visible and accessible to students not traditionally exposed to Caltech.

Fellows will carry out the work over a 10-week period during the summer and submit two interim reports, a research abstract, and final paper. At the conclusion of the program, students give an oral or poster presentation at one of several WAVE Seminar Days, symposia modeled on a professional technical meeting.

The 2025 WAVE Fellows award is $6,000 for the ten-week period, plus on-campus housing, and a dining and travel supplement of ~$1000. Caltech housing is available and we strongly encourage all Fellows to live on campus. The 2025 WAVE Fellows program dates are June 17 through August 22.

For more information, see: https://sfp.caltech.edu/undergraduate-research/programs/wavefellows.

High School Students

SRC - Summer Research Connection

The Summer Research Connection (SRC) is a 6-week program for K-12 science teachers and Pasadena Unified School District high school students. Participants are placed in research labs at Caltech where they conduct scientific research in assigned student-teacher teams under the guidance of research mentors.

For more information, see the SRC website.

NASA / IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program (NITARP)

NITARP, the NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program, gets teachers involved in authentic astronomical research. We partner small groups of largely high school educators with a mentor professional astronomer for an original research project.

The educators incorporate the experience into their classrooms and share their experience with other teachers. The program runs January through January. Applications are available annually in May and due in September.

See https://nitarp.ipac.caltech.edu/ for more information.

Citizen Science

IPAC scientists have been a part of a number of NASA citizen science projects. For example, Dr. Davy Kirkpatrick works on "Backyard Worlds: Planet 9" and "Backyard Worlds: Cool Neighbors" - please contact him to learn more!

Citizen Science projects are collaborations between scientists and interested members of the public. Through these collaborations, volunteers (known as citizen scientists) have helped make thousands of important scientific discoveries. More than 410 NASA citizen scientists have been named as co-authors on refereed scientific publications. Want to work on some real NASA science? See: https://science.nasa.gov/citizenscience.

Students and their mentors Dr. Davy Kirkpatrick and Mr. Dan Caselden discussing their citizen science project.

Working at IPAC

Interested in working at IPAC? Most years, students have an opportunity to work at IPAC over the summer. While these include an opportunity to learn and observe, these jobs are for real tasks and work needed at IPAC. You can make a difference! 

We circulate information about potential student hires internally at IPAC to see if there may be a project need and match. If you are interested, please contact Dr. Davy Kirkpatrick. Opportunities will also be posted on our Job Opportunites webpage.