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ASTR 390 - Independent Study

Bow shock test (Chris Orban)

Students take an independent study course to learn a single topic in greater depth than can be accommodated in a normal course. The student and the instructor choose a topic based on the student's interests and background, then meet weekly to discuss progress throughout the semester. At the end the student prepares a tangible result for evaluation (e.g., a research paper or a piece of software). My independent study students have done everything from pure reading courses, to algorithm development, to research toward undergraduate senior theses.

Some examples of past independent study projects:

Jingyao Zhu - Recombination Energy and Common Envelope Evolution
Rolf Wubben - Influence of Star Rotation on MESA Stellar Evolution Models
Joseph A'Hearn - Effects on Potentially Hazardous Asteroids from a Massive Object Placed at the Sun-Earth L₄ Point
Phil Travis - A Study of the Roche Limit and Tidal Forces on a Cloud of Particles (ASTR 210 Honors)
Tom Kirsh - Wormholes: A Review (ASTR 210 Honors)
Landon Gelman - Tully Fisher Relation for SDSS DR8 and DR12
Mallory Conlon - Introduction to Python
Adam Dempsey - Methods for Dark Matter N-Body Simulations in C
Matthew Miller - An Overview of Weak Gravitational Lensing
Anshul Kanakia - Radiation Transfer Simulations in 3 Dimensions
Christopher Orban - Modeling Protogalactic Collapse and Magnetic Field Evolution with FLASH
Ben Carls - Globular Cluster Self-Enrichment

Paul Ricker

In this section

ASTR 390 - Independent Study