Apply for the Carnegie Astrophysics Summer Student Internship Program

By Gwen Rudie

CASSI interns on the catwalk 

of the 200 inch Hale Telescope 

at the Palomar Observatory.

The Carnegie Astrophysics Summer Student Internship Program (CASSI) is a 10 week, paid internship and educational program based at Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, CA. CASSI welcomes a diverse cohort of 10-15 undergraduates annually, most of whom are students at colleges and universities in Southern California. CASSI Interns collaborate with Carnegie astronomers on original research projects from studying exoplanets to distant galaxies. Some CASSI interns also work with Carnegie scientists and engineers on the next generation of cameras and spectrographs for our telescopes.

Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month: The Arecibo Observatory Space Academy

Photo montage by Ricardo Correa 

Today’s guest bloggers are Edgard Rivera-Valentin and Luisa Zambrano-Marin. Ed is the Project Manager for the Space Academy and a staff scientist in the Planetary Radar group at the Arecibo Observatory. Luisa is the Program Coordinator for the Space Academy and a data analyst for the Planetary Radar Group at Arecibo Observatory.

We are Latinos, we are Scientists, and we are Educators. We often struggle to succeed in a field in which we are underrepresented and devalued both consciously and unconsciously by peers. Our upbringing, culture, and expectations are diverse and diverge from the “norm”. We understand what it’s like to feel unprepared for college, graduate school, and the professional workforce. And all too often, we know the struggle of breaking through established barriers in the scientific community. We are the 3%. 

Hispanics and Latinos are the largest underrepresented group with a measured interest in STEM fields. Studies show that Hispanic and Latino students are equally as interested in entering a STEM major in college as their White counterparts, and yet we are less likely to graduate with a degree in a STEM field (Crisp and Nora, 2012). There is indisputably a gap to be filled, one that we know occurs past the interest in STEM and before the student decides their career path. At the professional stage, it gets even more noticeable, despite the fact Latinos and Hispanics compose nearly 20% of the U.S. population, we only account for 3% of the STEM doctoral degrees and 3% of Physics faculty in the United States. 

So something is very wrong when we have a significant percentage of the population of which a significant number show strong interest in STEM fields and yet are not well represented in the professional stage.