Collaborative Research: California-Hawaii Astrophysics Mentoring Partnership (CHAMP)

The California-Hawaii Astrophysics Mentoring Partnership (CHAMP) is a program between the University of California Riverside (UCR), a minority serving institution, and the University of Hawaii (UH), Institute for Astronomy (IfA). CHAMP is designed to build on years of successful partnership between these two institutions to share their existing facilities and infrastructures, with the goal of building a partnership to address the 2022 Decadal Survey recommendations for Astronomy & Astrophysics. The UH-IfA has extensive access to ground-based telescopes (~15% of the observing time on all large telescopes on Mauna Kea - Keck, Gemini, Subaru, CFHT, UKIRT), with experience in observing techniques, data processing and reduction. UCR has significant expertise in data science, machine learning, data visualization, data cataloging, STEM education, and outreach. CHAMP will use this combined expertise to develop a research, education, and outreach program targeting both undergraduate and graduate students in the two partner institutions. CHAMP will particularly focus on the under-represented minority groups in astronomy, including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, Hispanics and women. CHAMP will also organize summer camps in astronomy for high school students, introducing them to coding with Python and data science techniques. Using the telescopes at UCR observatory in Joshua Tree National Park and at Mauna Kea, Hawaii, CHAMP will organize hands-on and remote stargazing nights for the public. The focus of the broader impact will be Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders at IfA and the Latino and Hispanic community at UCR. UH-IfA and UCR have played a major role in creating two of the largest and deepest ground-based multi-wavelength galaxy surveys - COSMOS2020 and Hawaii-Two0 (H20). CHAMP will use these surveys to address major scientific questions in Galaxy Evolution and Cosmology and to develop research and training programs for undergraduate and graduate students who will visit the partner institutions to receive training and perform research under a faculty member. The program will last for 10 weeks each year for both undergraduate and graduate students. UCR students will gain hands-on observing experience and UH-IfA students will learn about data science and machine learning techniques and their application to astronomy. CHAMP will also develop two new courses to be delivered at both institutions: “Tools in Modern Astronomy” to teach basic skills in measurement of photometric redshifts, galaxy mass, extinction, star-formation rates; use of stellar population synthesis algorithms, and “Machine Learning for Astronomers” by adapting and building on an existing undergraduate course at UCR. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.