Community College Internship Program Celebrates Fourth Year of Student Research Achievement

The SETI Institute’s Community College Internship program continues to provide students with meaningful, hands-on research experience during the academic year through its partnership with Bay Area community colleges. Now in its fourth year, the program welcomed applicants from Foothill College in Los Altos, Diablo Valley Community College in Pleasant Hill and Evergreen Valley College in San Jose. 

This year’s program culminated on June 5 with a final presentation event showcasing the work of three student interns and the scientific skills they developed throughout the spring semester. 

Ariana Estrada, mentored by Dr. Lauren Sgro, joined remotely from Spain and presented her work on exoplanet detection through the Unistellar Citizen Science Program. Her work included transit photometry analysis and the development of a Python tool that matches observed targets with scientific catalogs, helping to streamline the identification of exoplanet candidates. 

Valentina Penati-Baktyar, mentored by Dr. Uma Gorti, shared her research on detecting water snow lines in protoplanetary disks using data from the James Webb Space Telescope and IRIS modeling. While data saturation issues prevented a successful detection, her project highlighted the challenges and realities of cutting-edge astronomical research.

Maria Pico, mentored by Dr. Doug Caldwell, presented her work on exoplanet detection and vetting workflows using data from NASA’s TESS spacecraft. She also demonstrated a website she developed to help researchers filter and validate potential planet candidates more efficiently. 

The event concluded with certificate presentations by Pamela Harman, the SETI Institute’s outgoing Director of Education, recognizing the interns’ accomplishments in balancing rigorous scientific research while maintaining full course loads at their home institutions. “This ongoing collaboration between the SETI Institute and local colleges expands the student internship experience beyond traditional summer programming, in addition to providing opportunities for students studying at colleges that cannot offer in-house research experiences,” said Dr. Simon Steel, Deputy Director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute and lead for the community college internship program. “The three clear, engaging and informative research presentations today show how fruitful this relationship between the SETI Institute and the community colleges of the Bay Area has become.”