Lookback at our 2024 summer internships

Another summer comes to an end! Once again this year, we had the chance to spend a few months with the extremely dynamic undergraduates who did internships with us. On August 15, they presented their results on the final presentation day. For this special occasion, our entire team gathered at the MIL campus, and we were honoured to welcome our new donor, Mr. Jean-Marc Lauzon. Our interns have now returned to their respective institutions to continue their studies.

In the short interviews below, you can discover the reflections of Maria Bayder, Frédéric Beaudet, Samuel Boucher, Mathis Bouffard, Luca Camarra, Sarah Contré, Ben Coull-Neveu, Lina D’Aoust, Sophie-Mu-Fei Gravel Depalle, Carrie He, Élise Leclerc, Thomas Lefèvre, Justin Lipper, Sonya Liu, Anthinéa Melot, Allison Moffatt, Olivia Pereira, Alexandra Rochon, Jonathan Roussy and Willow Taiger, on their summer experience as IREx interns.

You can also watch the 2024 Interns interviews on our Instagram account! 

Maria Bayder

Intern from Marianopolis College who worked with Nicolas Cowan at McGill University

What was the topic of your internship?

My internship focused on modeling ultraviolet radiation in Earth’s oceans across billions of years. I created models of how ultraviolet light is emitted by the Sun, how the light is absorbed by and passes through Earth’s atmosphere and ocean waters, and if the remaining light underwater is energetic enough to break down organic molecules. These models can help us understand if the change in the amount of ultraviolet radiation over time affected the development of early life on Earth.

What was interesting about it?

Learning how the Sun evolved, how drastically different Earth was billions of years ago, and what is currently known about the effects of ultraviolet light on life was fascinating. Additionally, it was intriguing to think about what the project’s results imply about the evolution of life on Earth and potential life development on exoplanets.

What did you discover? What was your most important result?

So far, I found that in shallow waters, the significant decrease in medium-energy ultraviolet light over time may have caused early life to evolve. High-energy ultraviolet radiation gets quickly absorbed in Earth’s atmosphere and ocean waters over most of Earth’s history, so only tiny amounts of this light would affect life. Meanwhile, low-energy ultraviolet light is likely not energetic enough to break down organic molecules and drastically affect life.

What did you learn this summer?

I learned more about solar physics, atmospheric chemistry, and microbiology. Throughout a variety of discussions and presentations from other IREx members, I learned a lot about general concepts and current news in astrophysics. I also acquired several new research skills, such as how to read scientific papers effectively and how to present my project in different settings.

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

My biggest challenge was effectively balancing between acquiring new information from scientific articles and programming this new information into my models. At the beginning, I focused on only reading or programming, so my work flow slowed down significantly. Over time, I learned to mix both tasks so that reading and programming would complement each other well.

What did you like most about your internship?

I really enjoyed the interdisciplinary nature of my project, since I find it wonderful to see physics, chemistry, and biology coming together to answer one question. The presence of many disciplines allowed me to learn more about each science and obtain a better global understanding of how the world works. I also deeply appreciated meeting the other IREx interns, IREx members, and members of the research group I was in.

Frédéric Beaudet

Trottier Intern from Université de Montréal who worked with David Lafrenière at Université de Montréal

What was the topic of your internship?

Comparing methods of extracting interesting exoplanets parameters out of transit lightcurves

What was interesting about it?

I got to experiment with parameter fitting, a very important tool in astrophysics, with data from actual exoplanets.

What did you learn this summer?

I learned a lot about data reduction pipelines, a.k.a. the underlying processes that convert raw data from the telescopes into usable spectra and images for scientific analysis.

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

Getting to work on projects that were already underway before I got there, so having to learn everything before I got to work on my project.

What did you like most about your internship?

Getting to meet other interns and students also on their journey to discover the mysteries of space.

Samuel Boucher

Intern from Université de Montréal who worked with Loïc Albert at Université de Montréal

What was the topic of your internship?

During my internship, I analyzed all the light sources present in about fifty images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared instrument (MIRI). The goal was to obtain the probability that a particular exoplanet candidate is a false-positive. Moreover, I also had the opportunity to try to identify other interesting objects.

What was interesting about it?

My project was very interesting, because MIRI allows us since recently to see cold objects such as exoplanets and brown dwarfs quite clearly. Furthermore, the images that I analyzed are special, because the targets are stars that we call “white dwarfs”. Almost all the stars in our galaxy, including our own Sun, will end their evolution as white dwarfs. Hence, finding exoplanets around them can tell us about the fate of planetary systems.

What did you discover? What was your most important result?

I was able to create a list of the most interesting sources among the few thousands in the sample, which is going to be useful to identify targets to reobserve. Moreover, my work has contributed to show that a particular candidate is interesting in terms of shape and color. Finally, my study of the density of false positives in the backgrounds indicates that the probability of this candidate indeed being a companion ranges from about 54% to 74%.

What did you learn this summer?

I first learned how to manage obstacles and move forward in research, since this internship was my first experience in this field. Furthermore, I was able to improve my coding skills, discover new astronomical tools, and learn lots of facts about exoplanets research during the weekly presentations organized at the institute. Finally, this internship has been an excellent opportunity to practice my English communication and my presentation skills in general.

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

The nature of my project required that I start from nothing other than the images, so I had to build my code while learning many new tools as I went along. Also, new subtleties were revealed at each step, so my progress was very quick at the beginning, but it eventually seemed asymptotic. Moreover, and from a more practical perspective, I would say that developing my criterion to classify candidates by their shape was a great challenge.

What did you like most about your internship?

I really liked meeting other interns coming from very varied backgrounds. Furthermore, the IREx community has been extremely welcoming. Finally, I was very lucky that my advisor offered me the opportunity to present my work to his research group twice. These presentations were excellent learning and immersion experiences in the field of research in astronomy; I loved that aspect of my internship.

Mathis Bouffard

Trottier Intern from McGill University who worked with Nicolas Cowan at the same university, starting an MSc in September at UdeM

What was the topic of your internship?

This summer, I analyzed observations of the exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 b obtained with the SPIRou instrument at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. My goal was to detect certain greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), in the atmosphere of this rocky planet.

What was interesting about it?

No one before me had attempted to characterize the atmosphere of TRAPPIST-1 b using a ground-based telescope, as opposed to space telescopes like James Webb. Exploring this new approach to study the TRAPPIST-1 system is exciting because it hosts 7 rocky planets roughly the size of Earth, some of which are among the best candidates for detecting signs of life outside our Solar System.

What did you discover? What was your most important result?

My analysis did not reveal any carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of TRAPPIST-1 b. Even after combining 11 nights of observation of this planet, the potential CO2 signal was too weak to be clearly distinguished from the background noise of the instrument.

What did you learn this summer?

I learned a lot about the various ways in which the host star can influence observational data of orbiting exoplanets. Correcting for stellar contamination in these data is a complex process and a definitive solution has not yet been established by the scientific community.

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

The code used for my project was not entirely suited to the type of planet I was studying. As a result, I had to make significant adjustments to the code at each stage of the analysis to ensure it processed my data correctly. Fortunately, I was able to rely on the help of other members of the IREx who faced the same challenges.

What did you like most about your internship?

As part of my internship, I had the opportunity to present my research at the 9th Emerging Researchers in Exoplanet Science Symposium, at Cornell University in New York State. This was an extraordinary experience. I was able to connect with several young researchers who shared my enthusiasm and gained a lot of insight into the different areas of research in exoplanet science.

Luca Camarra

Intern from McGill University who worked with Eve Lee at McGill University

What was the topic of your internship?

This summer I compiled and analyzed a sample of dust rings in protoplanetary disks to gain insight into their ability to form planets. I worked with disk image data to determine some key ring parameters, which were then fed into models to estimate two dimensionless parameters that can tell us a lot about early planet formation.

What was interesting about it?

It was interesting to learn about how the motion of dust couples to that of the gas in protoplanetary disks and how we can leverage simple toy models involving these dynamics to learn about planet formation within these rings.

What did you discover? What was your most important result?

Although not conclusive, I found that within these dust rings, which are typically found beyond 10AU, the values of the calculated parameters suggest that these rings are not capable of forming planets, which may impact the occurrence of planets at these larger orbital distances.

What did you learn this summer?

I learned a lot about the dynamics of dust and gas in protoplanetary disks as well as the methods used to process and extract data from images of protoplanetary disks. I also learned how to effectively query databases and scan papers for information.

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

The biggest challenge for me, as someone doing research for the first time, was learning to manage/balance my time. It was difficult to not bring my work home when I felt I hadn’t achieved enough, but over time I learned of the importance of setting aside time away from your work.

What did you like most about your internship?

I really enjoyed learning about all the theory related to dust and gas dynamics in protoplanetary disks and their relation to planet formation, but above all I liked how supportive the IREx staff and other interns are, it made it much easier to get through difficult points of the project.

Sarah Contré

Intern from Bishop’s University who worked with Jason Rowe at Bishop’s University

What was the topic of your internship?

The topic of my internship was to produce a program that models a planet’s temperature, and its atmosphere based on thermodynamic equations.

What was interesting about it?

This internship was interesting because everything about this research was new, whether it was learning the equations or learning how to program the model. My supervisor provided great support and advice for the research as well as the skills to be a researcher. In addition, the subject of the research was very captivating since it had a direct impact on exoplanet research by providing models to characterize the composition of their atmosphere.

What did you discover? What was your most important result?

We were able to produce a model that matched an exoplanet’s data collected by telescopes, thus providing information on its atmospheric composition as well as its temperature. This is important since it proves our model works and that improving our program would be significant for our area of research. We also discovered the importance of some variables. For example, the distance between the planet and its host star will have a greater impact on our model than atmospheric parameters such as atmospheric density.

What did you learn this summer?

Quite a lot! There was the theory aspect such as understanding the equations and the practical aspect such as learning the programming language, but learning how to research was the most important aspect. For example, learning how to learn independently, determining where to find reliable resources, deciding what resources would be best for this concept, etc. The advice of my supervisor was crucial on this by providing experience and guidance.

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

Sometimes, the concepts were difficult, but by asking for help, this would be quickly resolved. The biggest challenge was getting to know myself as a researcher. It was challenging for me to accept that I did not know everything, that I could not solve every problem, and that research takes time. Acknowledging that I just started this journey, I understood that it’s all right to have more questions at the end of the day than at the beginning—which makes things so much more interesting!

What did you like most about your internship?

The whole project was fascinating, but my favourite aspect of this internship was the presentation. It was an activity where every intern, teacher and some sponsors joined together to learn from each other. We were able to see the diversity IREx provides for research. It was also a big challenge since we had to summarize our entire summer research in a couple of minutes. It really did put a bow on our summer internship.

Ben Coull-Neveu

Intern from McGill University who worked with Nicolas Cowan at McGill University

What was the topic of your internship?

I worked on developing a Python package called ExoEcho to decide which exoplanets are best to observe with telescopes. This tool is useful for selecting targets for future space missions aimed at exoplanetary research, such as the upcoming Ariel mission, a space telescope tasked with studying the atmospheres of around 1000 exoplanets. ExoEcho focuses on Ariel, to assist scientists in determining which planets should be prioritized during its mission.

What was interesting about it?

I learned a lot about developing a package in Python! Although a lot of time was dedicated to increasing the efficiency of the code, it was fun to solve the multitude of problems during the project. Working with actual exoplanet data and using the package for analyses was particularly exciting, as it brought the project’s purpose to life. This project expanded my understanding of Python & exoplanetary research, making it an enriching experience!

What did you discover? What was your most important result?

More than anything, I discovered that coding projects take far longer than I expected! However a more significant finding was that the Ariel mission will face limitations in the number of exoplanets it can reasonably observe, given our current knowledge. Relatively little is known about a lot of the discovered exoplanets, which makes predicting their scientific quality challenging. This underscores the importance of improving our understanding of exoplanets, which could improve the effectiveness of missions like Ariel.

What did you learn this summer?

I learned a lot about the Ariel mission, such as what we can hope to achieve with it when it eventually launches sometime in 2029. I also learned a lot about coding in Python, despite already feeling relatively comfortable with the language beforehand. Additionally, I learned a lot from the various talks throughout the summer about exoplanetary science and data analysis!

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

My biggest challenge was being patient with the process and remaining calm when things didn’t go as expected. Research rarely follows a straight path, which becomes abundantly clear when you find out that the code you spent a week writing was essentially useless. However, learning from those discouraging experiences is all part of the process!

What did you like most about your internship?

What I liked most about the internship was being a part of this incredible and rapidly evolving field of science! It is fascinating to see where we stand and how quickly we’re progressing. I think the most amazing part of this internship was learning about the clever methods that researchers have devised to better understand planets. It truly is awe-inspiring! Being able to contribute to this field, even in a small way, made the experience even more rewarding.

Lina D’Aoust

Trottier Intern from University of Victoria who worked with Eve Lee at McGill University

What was the topic of your internship?

My internship consisted of making theoretical models to predict trends in exoplanet atmospheric metallicity for the upcoming ARIEL space mission. The amount of solids a young planet acquires from the protoplanetary disk in which it was born depends on how it’s doing so. Here, “”metallicity”” refers to the amount of solids the planet acquires. ARIEL can then infer the way a planet formed from comparing its observed metallicity to theoretical predictions, thereby bringing us one step closer to elucidating planetary evolution.

What was interesting about it?

The interesting thing about my project is that it is helping a space mission to answer one of the multiple unanswered questions in astronomy: “How do planets form and evolve?”. Although my project works on a specific avenue of planet formation (pollution of a Jupiter or late-stage planet formation), it offers a different angle from which this question can be tackled.

What did you discover? What was your most important result?

My most important result is that one way through which a planet acquires solids could be observed by ARIEL. The dust in the protoplanetary disk can form small clumps called “pebbles” which fall onto the planet by gravity. This process is called “pebble accretion”. This scenario is predicted to produce the highest metallicity signal such that ARIEL could detect it! This means ARIEL could observe the vestiges of this late-stage planet formation mechanism!

What did you learn this summer?

This summer, I learned that talking with peers and colleagues helps both professionally and personally. Of course, asking questions and talking to graduate students is helpful, especially since they’ve most likely been where you are and through your struggles. However, I learned that those struggles are not necessarily only about science and coding: they can be about confidence, self-doubt and motivation.

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

My biggest challenge throughout my internship was to let things marinate in my head in order to find a solution! I like to undertake something and get it done in the same sitting, but on multiple occasions, tasks lasted multiple days such that I was preoccupied and unsatisfied at the end of the day. Things take time, and I ended up being satisfied at the end of the week instead.

What did you like most about your internship?

My favourite thing about my internship was the independence and community I had. On the one hand, I was left to do things at my own pace and figure things out on my own, which is good practice in resourcefulness and trusting the process. On the other hand, I was surrounded by the supportive and attentive IREx team when I needed it or when I wanted to join for a night out at the restaurant!

Sophie-Mu-Fei Gravel Depalle

Trottier Intern from Université de Montréal who worked with René Doyon at Université de Montréal

What was the topic of your internship?

The main goal of my internship was to constrain the stellar abundances of TRAPPIST-1 star, more specifically iron, magnesium and silicon. To get these values, I used SPIRou data that were affected by a problem called “persistence”. This phenomenon that modifies the depth of the spectrum’s lines is due to a “ghost spectrum” remaining from the last target observed by SPIRou. After correcting the data, I was able to retrieve the chemical abundances of TRAPPIST-1.

What was interesting about it?

Since we know that three of the seven planets of TRAPPIST-1 system are in the habitable zone, it is of great interest to determine their composition. By constraining the chemical abundances of the star TRAPPIST-1, we should be able to have a better idea of the internal structure of the planets orbiting around TRAPPIST-1. This information will help to know if there is life on TRAPPIST-1 planets.

What did you discover? What was your most important result?

During my internship, I was able to find a way to correct persistence in SPIRou data by adding a dilution factor that I calculated with a linear regression. After that, I determined that TRAPPIST-1 has a solar metallicity and I found a value for the iron abundance which is close to the one of our Sun.

What did you learn this summer?

I learned a lot about the internal structure of stars and their planets, and how to analyze a spectrum from SPIRou and to retrieve the chemical abundances, overall metallicity, and effective temperature values from it. I also acquired some knowledge about infrared high resolution spectroscopy and the problem of persistence which affects specifically infrared data.

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

The biggest challenge I had to face during my internship was to understand the codes that were given to me. Since they were originally made for Barnard’s star, I had to adapt them for TRAPPIST-1. I also had to determine the optimal dilution factor for persistence which was a long process.

What did you like most about your internship?

One of the things I liked the most this summer was learning about TRAPPIST-1 and the subjects discussed during IREx coffees. Also, I enjoyed the friendly atmosphere with the other interns and IREx members. Since all the interns were working in the same office, we could help each other and share our problems and solutions.

Carrie He

Intern from University of Toronto who worked with Björn Benneke at Université de Montréal

What was the topic of your internship?

The topic of my internship was developing a Python routine to extract exoplanet transit light curves using the method of aperture photometry and plotting the results. I specifically worked with JWST MIRI images of TRAPPIST-1b.

What was interesting about it?

This project was interesting because I had the opportunity to learn about various tools commonly used in exoplanet research. It’s fascinating how we can uncover so many details about distant planets—like their masses, radii, and atmospheres—just from analyzing observational data. I also got to work with data from the James Webb Space Telescope, which was a particularly cool experience as it really gave me the sense of working with cutting-edge space science!

What did you discover? What was your most important result?

I modified an aperture photometry routine, originally designed for Spitzer telescope data, to work with data from the Mid-Infrared Instrument on JWST. Afterward, I plotted the transit light curves of TRAPPIST-1b and created a time-series graph showing the light curve of each pixel within the aperture. This allowed the team to better understand the flux characteristics and gain insights into the performance of the instrument.

What did you learn this summer?

Through my internship this summer, I was able to learn about the various research topics in exoplanets and why they are interesting and significant. Additionally, I was able to further develop my Python programming skills, especially in data analysis.

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

The biggest challenge during my internship was getting started, as I felt overwhelmed by the large amount of information I had to absorb at once. I struggled with installing the necessary programs correctly and took some time to familiarize myself with each tool. This made the initial phase feel a bit slow, but once I got everything set up, I was able to make steady progress.

What did you like most about your internship?

Having the opportunity to work with and learn from amazing researchers in the field of exoplanets. Additionally, I enjoyed working with data from state-of-the-art space technology, which made the experience both exciting and enriching.

Élise Leclerc

Intern from Université de Montréal who worked with Jonathan Gagné at Planétarium d’Espace pour la vie/Université de Montréal

What was the topic of your internship?

Supervised by Jonathan Gagné, my work this summer involved developing tools to select planemo candidates and analyse their observational data to confirm and characterize more of these isolated objects that fall between the descriptions of a giant gaseous planet and a brown dwarf.

What was interesting about it?

Planemos, or ‘planetary-mass objects,’ are substellar objects with masses comparable to giant exoplanets, found within associations of young stars. Less than 10 have been confirmed using sufficient observational data such as near-infrared spectra. As a result, these objects remain relatively unknown and developing tools to select and characterize them could deepen our understanding of their origin and composition, as well as provide further insights into brown dwarfs and giant planets.

What did you discover? What was your most important result?

This summer, we successfully developed two open-access tools that will contribute to future research and discoveries related to planemos. Additionally, we created a code to extract parallax solutions from the observational data of the Mont-Mégantic Observatory. A few modifications and tests are still needed to determine whether accurate parallax measurements for planemos could be obtained.

What did you learn this summer?

During this internship, I learned how to develop tools and integrate them into existing Python packages. More precisely, I understood the importance of being meticulous in designing intuitive tools to ensure a smooth and fluid experience for researchers.

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

Building tools isn’t always ‘short and sweet’! To ensure that an open-access tool is free of errors, it must be tested under all possible circumstances and have a structure that I haven’t frequently used in the past, as I typically develop codes with a specific goal in mind for personal or internal use.

What did you like most about your internship?

One aspect I loved was creating codes knowing that they could help other researchers in their projects. However, what I enjoyed the most was being surrounded by professionals and students who are passionate about astronomy and being part of the always-inspiring IREx community.

Thomas Lefèvre

Intern from Université Paris Cité who worked with Nathalie Ouellette (EPO Team) at Université de Montréal

What was the topic of your internship?

I was a science communications intern, where I did outreach work at public events (Festival Eurêka, AstroFest…) and content creation for IREx’s social media platforms.

What was interesting about it?

The variety of assignments! I had the opportunity to do a lot of different projects during my summer internship.

What did you learn this summer?

Montreal’s science festivals are very well developed, and I’ve learned to run bilingual science workshops.

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

Successfully editing a video from the Instagram app… On a more serious note, I found the social networking part less interesting.

What did you like most about your internship?

I loved the working atmosphere on the MIL campus, with the other trainees but also with the IREx staff.

Justin Lipper

Trottier Intern from McGill University who worked with Björn Benneke at Université de Montréal

What was the topic of your internship?

I worked on modeling the climate of exoplanet atmospheres, focusing on vertical temperature structure (temperature at different altitudes). The model is designed to complement another temperature modeling code, which works well for hot planets but poorly for cool planets. My code is a module designed to work within a larger atmospheric modeling code, which includes atmospheric chemistry as well.

What was interesting about it?

I was fascinated how relatively simple physical concepts such as thermodynamic equilibrium and radiative transfer can be applied to better understand mysterious worlds far beyond the reach of even our most advanced spacecraft. Being able to make sense of the limited measurements that can be taken from lightyears away to construct a basic understanding of a planet’s climate, beyond simple quantities such as mass and radius, is something that I find very exciting.

What did you discover? What was your most important result?

I constructed a radiative-convective equilibrium model that produces a similar vertical temperature structure as similar already existing models. Although my results are not new, they have the potential to make the modelling of cool exoplanet temperature structures more reliable for Scarlet (my supervisor’s atmospheric modelling code), opening the door to potential new discoveries for both my future work and the work of other Scarlet users.

What did you learn this summer?

I learned a great deal about both the science behind my work and the process of conducting research. In terms of science, I learned about how the radiative transfer equations are used to understand the flow of energy within an atmosphere, as well as developing a better understanding of convection. In terms of the research process, I learned how to work with others to overcome adversity and to present my findings concisely and accessibly in my final presentation.

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

The biggest challenge for me during my internship was avoiding falling down the rabbit hole. In schoolwork, I am used to being able to solve a difficult assignment by dedicating more effort to understanding the material. In research, it is quite easy to spend a lot of effort persuing dead ends, so it was important for me to realize that I need to spend my effort wisely. The open ended nature of research really requires some getting used to.

What did you like most about your internship?

I really enjoyed applying my skills to contribute to something that the research team as a whole could use. I enjoyed learning more about exoplanet science from professor Benneke’s research group, and coming to understand how my work would fit together with the work of others to create new and interesting results.

Sonya Liu

Trottier Intern from McGill University who worked with Jason Rowe at Bishop’s University

What was the topic of your internship?

The Kepler Object of Interest (KOI) catalogue of transiting exoplanets! We worked with improved stellar parameters sourced from GAIA – an observatory mission launched in 2013 – and regenerated Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulations (MCMCs) to update the original catalogue from 2018. MCMCs are a method used by scientists to explore different possibilities and find answers by randomly sampling from a range of options, helping them estimate things that are hard to calculate directly.

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

Trying to understand code that someone else wrote! To actually figure out what was happening, I ended up rewriting most of it – it was strangely satisfying in the same way deep-cleaning your room is.

What did you like most about your internship?

When we finally compiled our new catalogue and I got my hands on both datasets! It was so exciting. All the anticipation that built over the last three months – it was almost cathartic to compare our new parameters to the old and see the changes. It felt like I had managed to make a difference even though I was just a small step in the process.

Anthinéa Melot

Intern from UTBM(France) who worked with the OMM Team at Université de Montréal

What was the topic of your internship?

My internship involved instrument and maintenance projects for the telescope at the Mont-Mégantic observatory.

What was interesting about it?

Working with the OMM team and at the observatory was really interesting! I learned a lot about how an observatory and its telescope works.

What did you discover? What was your most important result?

My internship wasn’t really focused on research, but on practical projects, so I’d say that the most important result was being able to assist the OMM team in its work.

What did you learn this summer?

I learned how the observatory team worked and the different projects they were involved in. By working with them during this summer, I learnt a lot about how an observatory works, especially its telescope. I was also able to learn more about the techniques they use to observe.

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

The biggest challenge was definitely taking measurements in the pit of the telescope in order to draw one of the mechanisms that turns the telescope, on SolidWorks.

What did you like most about your internship?

I think that in addition to the things I learnt, it was above all the environment in which I was able to do it that was interesting. Interacting with researchers, students and attending the IREx café, for example, enabled me to discover a lot about the field of astrophysics with which I wasn’t particularly familiar.

Allison Moffatt

Sureau Intern from McMaster University who worked with Nathalie Ouellette (EPO Team) at Université de Montréal

What was the topic of your internship?

This summer I got to work in science communication with the amazing Education and Public Outreach team!

What was interesting about it?

I enjoyed the large variety of initiatives that I got to take part in including public outreach events, video editing, and even a press release!

What did you discover? What was your most important result?

I discovered how to effectively communicate science in both French and English through a variety of different mediums. I additionally learnt how to adapt my vocabulary and detail of my explanations to better suit my audience.

What did you learn this summer?

I learnt a lot about video editing, since while I have done some video editing in the past, I have never had to produce high calibre videos. This meant that I got to familiarise myself with a new editing platform, and learn how to work with microphones and tripods.

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

This summer was my first experience producing bilingual content (including bilingual videos, and Instagram posts) which presented unique challenges. However this was mitigated through the support of Thomas (the other science communication intern) and the rest of the team!

What did you like most about your internship?

I really enjoyed the opportunities I got through festivals such as Eurêka and Astrofest, to interact with members of the public and teach them more about astrophysics and the work of IREx! For me this was really fulfilling work, and I appreciated seeing the direct positive effect these outreach events had in visitor’s days. Overall I had an amazing experience as an IREx intern, and feel so lucky to have been part of such an amazing team!

Olivia Pereira

Intern from McGill University who worked with Romain Allart (René Doyon) at Université de Montréal

What was the topic of your internship?

I worked on atmospheric characterization using the NIRPS spectrograph, which is an instrument on one of the ESO’s telescopes in Chile. Specifically, I worked on automating the data analysis process for planets observed with this instrument, so we can figure out what their atmospheres are like and what kinds of molecules are in them.

What was interesting about it?

NIRPS is a fairly new instrument – it’s only been online for around a year and a half – and it’s already accumulated a TON of data, much of which hasn’t even been looked at yet. I got to be one of the first people to ever look at a lot of this data, and making it easier for other people to do science with it in the future is really exciting.

What did you discover? What was your most important result?

One of the things I was looking for when developing my code was whether we could reproduce some detections made with other instruments in the past. We were able to find tentative detections of molecules on planets like WASP 127-b that matched results from SPIROU, a different spectrograph, which was a great sign!

What did you learn this summer?

I learned a lot about contribution to existing programming packages and coding collaboratively. I also learned a lot about how much information we can learn about the atmosphere of a planet just by studying its spectrum!

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

Jumping into someone else’s coding project and building on it was very daunting for me, and I had to learn how to approach learning how to use functions that were very complex and called on lots of other parts of the code by breaking them down. In the end, I think it made me a much stronger programmer, and really helped me understand how the science connected to the code I was looking at and working on.

What did you like most about your internship?

I liked how dynamic it was in terms of how many people I got to collaborate with! It gave me a lot of different perspective on how to do science and approach problems.

Alexandra Rochon

Intern from McGill University who worked with Lisa Dang (René Doyon) at Université de Montréal

What was the topic of your internship?

I used images captured by the MIRI instrument on board the James Webb Space Telescope to study the rocky exoplanet LHS1140 c. These images are taken as the planet passes behind its host star and, by measuring the associated dip in brightness, we were able to determine the temperature of the planet and constrain its orbit. During this project, I gained experience in analyzing photometric data and improved our methods for future projects.

What was interesting about it?

This exoplanet is part of the LHS1140 system which has been making the headlines at IREx this summer because of the outer exoplanet, LHS1140 b, which is a water world candidate! This planet is also in the habitable zone of its star, making this system the second closest one to us after the Trappist-1 system with a planet that could have liquid water on its surface. Studying planet c allowed us to understand this system better and learn about the intriguing planet b.

What did you discover? What was your most important result?

The goal of this project was to gain experience working with this type of data and to understand better the issues that might come up during data reduction. We had no expectations regarding the results when we began the project, so we were happily surprised when we took our first look at the data and we could identify the brightness dip by eye! The preliminary results suggest that the planet could be hotter than we expected and have an eccentric orbit!

What did you learn this summer?

I was new to this type of data analysis. I had previously done similar work using a pipeline written by someone else, and this was my first experience writing my own code to reduce the data. I learned a lot about statistical tools to identify and quantify the noise in the data, as well as why we have these systematic sources of noise. I can now see that there are many additional improvements I can implement to my project and I am excited to get to work on that in the coming months!

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

During this project, I used a pipeline I had never worked with before and wrote my own code to remove noise in the data. I was experimenting with this type of data and had to figure out to best way to deal with the noise. This was a great learning experience that came with a learning curve! A lot of debugging was involved, which was definitely challenging, but I am very proud of my accomplishments!

What did you like most about your internship?

This was my second summer at IREx and I really enjoyed my project and had a great time with the other interns! I got the opportunity to take part in enriching activities like the IREx cafes where we learn about new topics every week, and to teach summer camp kids about exoplanets. I also visited the Mont-Mégantic Observatory to work with the telescope for a few days which was a highlight of my summer!

Jonathan Roussy

Intern from Université de Montréal who worked with Patrick Dufour at Université de Montréal

What was the topic of your internship?

This summer, I used a Fortran code capable of modelling the spectrum and polarization spectrum of a white dwarf star with a magnetic field, with some unseen capabilities in this domain. My job was first to see if the polarization spectrum given by this code was correct.
Because this part of the code had never been used, as expected, it did not work as intended. At this point, I had to find the problem and fix it.

What was interesting about it?

White dwarfs are not very well known except for those working on them, in contrast to exoplanets. I was therefore going into a new subject that I didn’t know so well, except that there was fun physics happening.

What did you discover? What was your most important result?

My result is simply that the simulations are now working, and in the future, I will be able to use this code, to then maybe discover something about the working of magnetic white dwarf stars.

What did you learn this summer?

As mentioned earlier, this summer I learned how to work in the Fortran coding language, which is used a lot in the astrophysics community and is not known to be a user-friendly language.

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

While trying to make the code work, I had to translate the lines into their mathematical equations, figure out which physical concepts they were linked to, and check whether those were correct or already accounted for elsewhere.

What did you like most about your internship?

In my case, I was working on my own project, and not only data analysis, and data processing for a larger project. I was working on the main thing, using my knowledge to advance, and it was very empowering not to be a cog in a machine.

Willow Taiger

Trottier Intern from University of Toronto who worked with Jonathan Gagné at Planétarium d’Espace pour la vie/Université de Montréal

What was the topic of your internship?

This summer, I focused on exoplanet detection using the transit method, where we look at light curves from stars to see if they host exoplanets. The goal of my project was to make the detection process easier by making the dips in the light curves more obvious by subtracting a prediction – which was basically the light curve without the transits – from the data. That way, it could ideally be used to detect exoplanets around very noisy stars.

What was interesting about it?

This was not the first time I’ve dealt with light curves, but it was almost a completely different way of dealing with them than I had before. Additionally, learning the different stars’ properties based on their light curves was really cool.

What did you discover? What was your most important result?

My most important result was probably the residuals from the light curve of star HIP-67522. It showed two clear dips where the expected transits would be, without all the fluctuations from the original light curve.

What did you learn this summer?

This summer, I learned to create a tool using Python to simplify the detection process of exoplanets from light curves using the transit method. This tool is nearly fully automated, requiring only a few parameters per star.

What was the biggest challenge during your internship?

The biggest challenge during my internship was learning to code, as well as keeping my code organized. Before this summer, my knowledge in Python was pretty elementary. Now, I’ve gotten much more comfortable with it, thanks to my project and my supervisor!

What did you like most about your internship?

I really liked getting to know the other interns at IREx. It was very cool to meet people from all over the world who share the same passion for astronomy and working together, even if our projects were not on the same topics.

 

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