The LSR summer Internship program

The LSR remains very proactive in this area and we have perhaps the most active student internship program across the Faculty of Science. Our robust internship program not only serves a valuable KE and community service but it also helps to build our brand while offering our research staff useful, short-term research support.

We have hosted 73 interns since 2016 for periods of between 2-3 weeks and 3 months. Our interns are typically a mix of Summer Research Fellows, Laidlaw Scholars and other undergraduate students from HKU and other HK SAR universities; high school students from various top HK schools and overseas students, (e.g. India, USA, Singapore, Spain).

Photo showing the first 8 of 17 interns who arrived at the LSR in the first week of June 2021 to start their 2-3 month long research projects under the expert supervision of LSR members.

The LSR internship program has grown organically and rapidly since inception in 2016 with our first two interns to reach 21 over summer 2022 a new record. We do not advertise this program with applications all generated via word of mouth and reputation. We do not cater just to physics majors but have also accepted students from computing and engineering as befits the interdisciplinary nature of the LSR. Student projects cover work on computer simulations and aerospace design (for CubeSats and Mars rover drills), late stage stellar evolution and high-energy astrophysics but no subject area that overlaps with LSR interests regardless of HKU department is excluded.

Full house in the open plan LSR work area at Cyberport due to all the interns.

Although all current interns will be based at the LSR in Cyberport we encourage all LSR faculty and postdocs to offer to host LSR interns over the summer term at the main campus HKU too as we have now reached saturation point at the LSR itself.

Charting the growth of the LSR internship program between 2016 and 2022.

LSR interns in their own words from our summer 2022 cohort:

“I was delighted to be a full-time Intern Research Assistant over 2022 summer under Dr. Pablo Saz Parkinson. Working with the dedicated team at the LSR, I worked primarily on the technical and computing aspects of simulations and scripting for the MeV CubeSat project. Using the LSR’s quantum cube computer for processing opened new possibilities with the incredible degree of speed and automation possible, and using my python and linux knowledge I am proud to have been able to contribute to this incredible project. I am incredibly grateful to the LSR for the opportunity afforded to a young undergraduate student such as myself, and the invaluable support and advice given by those around me.”

by Aditya Mangla, LSR intern/RA summer 2022.

“It is a pleasure for me to be working here at the LSR for the past two weeks, which not only broadened my horizons on science and programming related fields, but also gave me precious insight and experience on research jobs. I am deeply thankful to Dr. Quentin for offering this wonderful opportunity, my mentor Rishank for guiding me along my internship journey, and every staff member and my co-workers for my superb internship experience at the LSR”

by Lisa Tso, LSR intern Summer 2022.

“At LSR I worked with Mr Pal and a team of motivated interns to develop a Zooniverse citizen science project to help classify and identify significant orbital periodicities in Lomb-scargle periodograms of data from the TESS Satellite. Thanks to Dr Partha Pal, in the 6 weeks I was there I learned about the TESS Satellite, the Fourier Transformation, periodograms, Bayes Theorem, and how to code in Python (Astropy, Matplotlib, Scipy etc). Additionally, I learned invaluable soft skills such as how to collaborate with other members of a research team, how to make and present slideshows, and how to write about scientific topics in an accessible way, and I got a glimpse into what life as an astrophysical researcher looks like, which only strengthened my resolve to be one when I am older. I am grateful for the opportunity to have worked with Mr Pal this summer, and I hope to do so again in the future”,

by Zaara Bhatia, LSR intern Summer 2022