Five York University physics students joined a prestigious international research program at Goethe University in Germany.
The five students were among a group of 20 that took part in the esteemed Goethe Research Experience Program (GREP), which provides students from around the world with opportunities to collaborate on research with scientists at Goethe University and the University of Alberta. The two-month program stresses the importance of international collaborations in science research and the unique aspect of involving undergraduates in research at an advanced level.
“It’s really amazing that at York, we have five students participating,” said Sean Tulin, a professor of physics in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, who supervised the students along with Laura Sagunski, a professor of theoretical physics at Goethe University.
The experience represented a culmination of training received through the EXPeriential Learning Opportunity through Research and Exchange (EXPLORE) course that allows for international learning to be done remotely.
EXPLORE springs from the relationship between Tulin and Sagunski, who met when the latter travelled from Germany to York to be a postdoctoral candidate. Tulin has long supervised York students doing research, said Sagunski, his co-supervisor on this project. She said her days working with him at York University inspired her to do the same when she returned to Germany.
“I became a professor here, basically, and I wanted to do the same – to supervise some students over the summer,” says Sagunski.
Thus, the EXPLORE course was born. The goal, said Sagunski, is to “build the bridge between learning physics in the classroom and learning how to be a researcher, because so much about research is working in international collaborations. It’s about communication to restructure and manage research projects and, of course, to do super exciting physics research.”
The students who participated in GREP were able to do just that, as their projects centred around the study of dark matter. Much of the universe is in the form of this mysterious matter, and scientists have no idea what it is. They know some of its properties but have no knowledge about what type of particle it is, what it’s made of or what its properties are. It’s nothing made up of any currently known particle. It’s a complete question mark ideal for high-achieving students – like those part of GREP – to research.
Lauren Morley was one of the York students at Goethe University for the summer. She was in the second year of her bachelor’s degree and initially did not apply to GREP because she didn’t think she would be selected. But Tulin urged her to apply, and she was surprised and thrilled to be accepted. Her EXPLORE project was the study of mini quasars.
Morley, an Alberta native, chose to study at York University for its superior astrophysics program, its large observatory – the largest on a university campus – and, particularly, because it offers astronomy courses in first year, unlike other schools, which do not offer them until third year. “What’s the point in being an astrophysics major if you’re not even doing the astro part for half of your degree?” Morley said.
As Tulin looks back over this summer at the opportunity GREP has provided Morley and the other York students, he also thinks about the many students who have benefited from the EXPLORE course. The course has been offered four times in the past three and a half years. “And we’ve had a whole cohort of York undergraduate students get involved in lots of different research topics through the course of EXPLORE,” he said. “That’s really been our primary driver, getting these undergrads doing research.”
For Tulin, the experience realizes advice he often shares with ambitious students. “The most important thing, for sure, is getting involved in research. As soon as you can, you know that getting involved in doing actual, real science is the most important thing.”
Sagunski’s work on EXPLORE and other creative programs has been lauded by her university and rewarded with the coveted 1822 University Prize for Excellence in Teaching, which Goethe University Frankfurt awards with the Frankfurter Sparkasse Foundation for innovations in teaching. The prize is endowed with €15,000 (about C$22,000), which Sagunski plans to “give back” by supporting future EXPLORE summer schools for Goethe and York universities’ students.