Fredrick Jenet
Director of the Center for Advanced Radio Astronomy, UT at Brownsville
Dr. Jenet's research and research related activities are creating the field of low-frequency gravitational wave astronomy using pulsar timing techniques. He is a co-founder of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for GRAVitational Waves (NANOGrav), an organization dedicated to the study of low-frequency gravitational waves. Dr. Jenet also created the Arecibo Remote Command Center (ARCC) program which is an integrated research and education program designed to get students involved in science research early in their careers. Through the ARCC program, he has been training students to use the Arecibo observatory to search for and observe exotic starts known as radio pulsars.
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Abstract: The Arecibo Remote Command Center
The Arecibo Remote Command Center (ARCC) on the campus of the University of Texas at Brownsville is a fully operational command and control room which allows students to control, in real time, the Arecibo Radio Telescope. Students from the high school, undergraduate, and graduate level are performing observations and analyzing the resulting data from the telescope. The ARCC students have discovered over 20 radio pulsars as well as evidence for faster-than-light pulse propagation in the interstellar medium. Given the number of students involved, the ARCC program itself will be one of the nationтАЩs top producers of Hispanic physicists. This talk will give an overview of the ARCC program and how it uses radio astronomy to attract and retain students into scientific and engineering careers. We will also present how ARCC can be replicated at other locations throughout Puerto Rico and the Americas.