Anthony Olguin, 2022 Space Telescope Science Institute Intern

Biography

SPS Chapter: University of Maryland-College Park

Hello, my name is Anthony and I am one of the AIP Research Interns. I am currently completing a double major in Astronomy and Physics at the University of Maryland in College Park. The University of Maryland has given me some great experiences to help me get closer to my professional goal of becoming a researcher in the field of astrophysics. After graduating I plan on joining the work force to pursue a career and a PhD in astrophysics.

In my free time I play tabletop/video games, soccer and go to concerts. I look forward to applying the experience I gain from the internship to completing my academic and professional goals. I can’t wait to meet to everyone and have an amazing experience this summer!

Internship

Host: American Institute of Physics

Project

Abstract

Studying the properties of star-forming galaxies provides insight into the formation and evolution of galaxies. The ionized gas within the star-forming galaxies can be probed by the emission lines within the spectra of these galaxies. IFS is a power technique which provides spatially-resolved spectroscopy and hence is useful in mapping emission lines throughout the galaxy and the properties encoded in the emission lines, such as star-formation, chemical abundance and kinematics. My project mainly focusses on reducing the integral field spectroscopy data (IFS) to produce data cubes, which can be analyzed further to study several galaxy properties. In this presentation, I will give an overview of different steps of data reduction. In addition, I will also introduce the large dataset of physical properties derived from emission lines of star-forming galaxies, which I have compiled from literature and which will serve as comparison sample later on.

Final Presentation

Internship Blog

Week 1: The Journey Begins...

Hello everyone, it is an end to a fantastic first week! On Tuesday, we had orientation, and I met a new group of intelligent individuals. I made new connections and friendships that I look forward to exploring for the rest of the internship. At first, I was nervous about meeting everyone, but the orientation was lighthearted and fun. Everyone was friendly and outgoing, making it easy for me to get to know the other interns.

After the workday, the interns had movie nights and went out to eat or explore D.C. together. We talked about each other’s projects and our expectations and worries for the summer. I was glad to hear other interns were worried like I was about whether we’d understand everything that was going on. Even if we are not working on the same projects, just having each other ask for advice or a different perspective will be extremely valuable this summer.

I met with my mentor, Nimisha Kumari, on Tuesday and learned about the research I will be helping with for the duration of the internship. The goal is to learn how to perform integral field spectroscopy. On Wednesday and Thursday, I spent a lot of time downloading programs for my internship. In addition, I spent the better part of a day figuring out how to install Linux onto my computer without messing with the hard drive. On Thursday, I finished installing Linux and spent the rest of the day installing DS9, Python, and Gemini IRAF. Friday was spent reading some papers given to me by my mentor.

The first week of work was about learning the science behind the research I will be doing and finding ways to download the required software. I look forward to learning and applying more about the research that I learn from my mentor throughout the rest of the internship. I spent the rest of the time getting to know the other interns and exploring D.C. for a bit. I found new places to eat and connect with a new group of great people that I look forward to sharing a lot of time with during the rest of the internship. This was a great first week, and I can not wait to see what the rest of the summer holds.

Week 2: An Eventful Week

This week was full of exciting events. I met John Mathers, a Nobel laureate, watched a national baseball game, and saw a screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was a hectic week at work, and having fun with the other interns.

On Monday-Wednesday, I spent the day reading research papers assigned by my mentor. The readings were meant to help me deepen my understanding of how integral field spectroscopy works and its applications. Integral field spectroscopy measures the chemical ratio inside an observed galaxy. We can determine specific characteristics based on the ratios like metallicity and chemical composition. The readings will help me understand the data analysis I will be doing in later weeks. I look forward to applying all the information I have learned from the readings over the past two weeks. Thursday and Friday were spent collecting data from other papers and recreating a graph. Most of the time was finding programs that could collect all the data from a table I was using since the papers I was referencing were PDFs.

On Thursday, we met with John Mathers at lunch and spent a couple hours interacting and asking him questions. It was amazing to hear him talk about his career and the work he put in to get the Nobel prize for help proving the Big-Bang Theory. He mentioned staying flexible and always volunteering for research experience, even if it’s something you don’t have much experience in. He told us how always being eager to explore new opportunities helped make his career. Afterward, we all went outside and took a group photo with Dr. Mathers. Later, I was able to get a picture with just the two of us. It was a fantastic experience I will not forget.

On Friday, two significant events were happening. First was the Brewers vs. the Nationals baseball game that all the interns went to as a group. We got to explore the stadium in D.C. and spend time together as a group. I sat with Brad for most of the game, and he gave me a refresher on the rules of baseball. Brad also bought us pretzels and popcorn, which was incredibly generous of him. At the end I went with Taylor to the top of the stadium to see the Washington Monument from a high vantage point. It was really cool to see it from a more leveled vantage rather than looking up.

After the ball game, most of the interns went to a showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was my first time watching the movie and experiencing a live showing with a shadow cast. It was an amazing experience and was wildly entertaining. Since the live showing included an interactive shadow cast, a lot was going on, and it was hard to follow the plot of the movie if there even was one. However, it was such a fun time that I plan on going to a live showing of the movie again. This week was full of excitement, and I look forward to more good times with the rest of the interns next week!

Week 3: To Infinity and Beyond!

This week I spent most of my time at work recreating a graph from a paper assigned by my mentor. I spent many hours looking through 12 other papers and finding the data points the author used to make my own version of the figure. It was relatively successful, but a few points were not lining up. After spending a few hours looking at it on Friday I figured it was a next week problem at that point. Other than the figure I am still reading other research papers that the authors performed integral field spectroscopy on collected data to help prepare myself for data analysis that will hopefully happen next week. This week was slow progress compared to the previous two.

The first activity was on Friday night, I went with Janessa to watch Lightyear in theaters. Toy Story was my favorite movie series to watch as a child. I had both a Woody and Buzz Lightyear toys growing up. To this day I still have my Buzz Lightyear toy stored away back home. The movie was amazing, it brought me back to my childhood watching the first Toy Story again. There were a few references to the original Toy Story when Buzz first interacted with Zerg. The producers did an awesome job of making the movie without having to reference or retcon anything from the original movie.

The next activity was an orchestra that the entire intern group watched together. We saw the NOI+F (National Orchestra Institute + Festival) at the Clarice Center on the University of Maryland campus. We saw the orchestra perform with two talented musicians, Timothy McAllister and Anna Mattix. Both performed amazing solos and reminded me of my time playing in a band. We listened to 5 pieces that were between 10-22 minutes long. I was surprised by how long they were able to play. The entire performance sounded perfect, I couldn’t hear a single mishap or mistake which was impressive for such long and complicated pieces.

I am looking forward to next week with the astronomy on the mall and exploring historical landmarks around D.C. after work. Hopefully next week is just as exciting!

Week 4: Astronomy on the Mall

As the week comes to an end, I realize how quickly the internship is passing by. By the time I looked at the clock the workday was almost over. Half of the week was going through a bunch of readings to finish putting together a figure. The other half was for learning how to operate Python through Ubuntu to use a code for analyzing observation data. It was a very busy work week but very rewarding. I was only able to keep focused because of the social events that took place after the workday.

On Wednesday we had a picnic with all the interns. We had lots of fun playing pool and Heads Up together. It was a nice break in the middle of the work week that was very much appreciated. Friday night we had another party amongst the interns. On Saturday we presented physics demos on Mall. I helped show the fabric of space time and the electromagnetism demos. It was great talking with adults and children about physics and explaining the science behind the demos. At the event I was able to get a picture with Bill Nye which was really cool. At the end of the night a few of us watched the awesome movie Sing 2 together.

After the amount of work and fun from this week I am looking forward to report about next week.

Week 5: Halfway There

Already halfway through the internship, and so much has happened. This week flew by and blended in with last week’s events. The best part was on Tuesday when we had a potluck. A few of us made dishes that we love and used recipes from home. I made Italian zucchini boats with Italian sausage on top, quinoa, and marinara sauce. It was pretty good, along with the other unique dishes I tried that night. Afterward, a few of us went to the Lincoln memorial together to enjoy the view of DC at night. It was a great break from early in the work week.

The next event we held was a Dungeons and Dragons session. We were able to roleplay the characters we created from the previous week. It was a great session, and it was fun to see people act out their characters. We all had a great time and looked forward to the next session.

I didn’t do any of the parties for the 4th this weekend, but I do plan on seeing the parade and fireworks in DC on Monday. Most of the interns will be going, so I think it will be an excellent experience for us all to go together. Outside of the 4th and the DnD session, there wasn’t much else on the social side of this week.

For work, I made progress in running the code I was given by my mentor the previous week. It was a great feeling when the code started to work since I have been spending a lot of time just learning how it works and how to manipulate the command prompt. But it is all starting to come together, and I am looking forward to analyzing new data in the future.

Till next week!

Week 6: Lots of Fireworks

Work this week was mostly looking at code and understanding how it works. At the end I spent time putting together tables that I would be needing for the last few weeks. Wasn’t super exciting work but it was nice to finally understand the code that I have been looking at for a couple weeks. Looking forward to possibly moving on to new data to look at in week 7.

For the fourth of July a few of the interns went to the parade early in the day. We watched tons of bands and floats go by. It was cool to see so many different high school marching bands that flew in from across the country. This was probably the biggest parade I have ever seen. It seemed to go on forever and we didn’t even stay for the whole parade.

After the parade we went to the firework show later that night. That was also the longest firework show I have ever seen; I believe it went for 15 or so minutes. There were so many fireworks that the smoke was visible for a couple blocks away. While we sat on the lawn waiting for the fireworks, we played a bunch of games.

Tonight, we held another potluck at consignment (Emma and Janessa’s room). A few of use made a bunch of dinner and dessert dishes that were amazing. We all made dishes that were different from the last potluck, so it was a whole new round of food to try. I just made a basic stir fry I got from an online recipe that I modified a little. Others made dishes from their home country which tasted much better than mine.

That is the summary for this week, it wasn’t as busy as previous weeks, but it was still eventful. Definitely looking forward to these last few weeks. Till next week!

Week 7: Crafting Tables

This week I worked on putting together data from multiple papers. I collected O/H and C/O ratio abundances for one table in a text file. Then I converted the table to a latex and fits format. It was relatively simple but there was a lot of papers to look at. It just took a lot of time to put everything together. I finished creating the data cube from the earlier work given to me by mentor from previous weeks. Finally have the code running and should be able to use with new data in the following weeks.

On Thursday there was a lunch hosted by the AIP foundation where we talked about our personal experiences as physics and astronomy majors. I learned how money is raised at AIP to support students at SPS and at this internship. It was great to hear from the other interns about how their current position has either changed or solidified their goals after graduation. For some it even changed their views on which areas research they might want to be involved with after the internship. It was a great lunch and I appreciate the AIP foundation for hosting it!

On Friday we went to Jazz in the Garden at the outdoor sculpture garden. The event was very packed and very loud the entire time. For most of the time we were there, I couldn’t hear the jazz music at all. It ended up being a social event for the interns to just hang out and talk at the garden. Later that night a group of us went and got Ethiopian food. That was my first time eating Ethiopian before and it was good. We ate with our hands and used injera, a type of bread, to pick up the food. Anyone who hasn’t experienced this type of cuisine should try it.

On Saturday we went to the Fiesta Asian Street Fair to celebrate and experience Asian American culture. There was lots of different foods, products, dances, and games that were going on. We spent a couple hours there before the storm that was coming in made us decide to leave.

This week was full of experiences with the other interns, and it makes me sad to think the internship is ending in a few weeks. But there are still a few more weeks left so I plan on enjoying it with the other interns till the last day. Looking forward to report on the events that we planned for this week!

Week 8: Visit to Space Telescope Science Institute

This week I was able to make my first visit to the Space Telescope Science Institute building. It was on the John Hopkins campus pushed into the back. It was a beautiful campus with an amazing building. I got to see the control room that JWST was operated from. Hopefully I will be able to visit a couple more times before the end of the internship. While I was there, I started work on my final presentation. I discussed with my mentor what should be included in the presentation, and I am excited to present in two weeks.

We had a taco Monday with the other interns at the dorm. We ate tacos, danced, and listened to music for a few hours. Every person brought a part of the tacos, or something related to the party. The part of the internship I will miss the most is the potlucks we hold every other week. The next potluck is looking like a breakfast for dinner night. The plans are still up in the air so we will see how it works.

On Thursday we went on a tour of the NIST campus. We saw a few different parts of campus like a nuclear reactor, anechoic chamber, and other research that was being done on campus. We were able to see what current work is being done which was amazing. Didn’t understand half of it but it was cool to hear straight from the researchers. The nuclear reactor room was the best. We learned about the 30 different devices that are hooked up to it for measuring data. Each part is separate but is all fueled from the same reactor. It was a cool tour that really makes a student want to work for NIST after graduating.

With the 8^th week coming to an end the final part of the internship is coming. Presentations are coming up on the 5^th and research is being wrapped up. I look forward to the last two weeks of the summer and cant wait to see what happens!

Week 9: Almost Done

This week was spent finalizing research and preparing for the presentations next week. I finished putting together another set of tables this week and now only need to do two more tables. Spent time putting my slides together which is taking more time than I thought it would. The work is pretty much done, and I plan on spending the rest of my time here working on my presentation. SPS hosted two speakers for us interns last week. The first was with Dr. Renee Horton and she talked about her experience as a physicist. It was a great talk, and I learned a lot about being able to push through and do what you enjoy even with the obstacle’s life throws at you. The other talk was with Dr. Midhat Farooq about building resumes and applying for jobs after graduation. Both talks were great, and I learned a lot from both individuals.

Most of our events as interns happened at the end of the week. We played Jackbox and watched a movie on Friday night. We stayed in and had a good time at the dorm rather than going out. It was a relaxing night that many of us needed after the long week. Last night we went to a Korean BBQ and gorged ourselves on a delicious feast. We ate so much food but was only able to make it through half of the menu. Afterwards we went to two speakeasy bars that were around during the prohibition. The hidden rooms were cool and made you feel like you were in a bar during the prohibition. We had to ask a person on the street where the door for the first speakeasy was because it was well hidden. Tonight, we held our last potluck to get rid of any last bits of food that we can’t bring with us.

This week was long, but it also went by fast. There is still plenty to do for this last week so hopefully it doesn’t go by too quickly. I am looking forward to everyone’s presentations on Friday. We all have been sharing our projects the past 10 weeks, but it will be nice to see the end results of what everyone has accomplished.

Week 10: The End to a Great Summer

On Tuesday, we held our final DnD session, which was terrific. We played on the lawn of the Lincoln Memorial so we could play and watch the sunset together. We all had a good time and agreed to try and play with each other virtually during the semester. I hope we keep that going to stay in contact with each other.

On Thursday, we held a rehearsal for the presentations and got feedback. As a result, I was able to make final adjustments that I think made the difference for Friday. After the rehearsal, I met my mother and sister, who were visiting for the presentations on Friday. They helped me pack and move out of my dorm room that night. What I did not pack went to intern boxes for next year’s interns. Even though packing was a challenging task in the middle of the storm in D.C., it was nice to sleep in my own apartment that night and spend time with my family.

On Friday, we finally gave our presentations. It was nerve-racking up to the point I gave my presentation. Once it was over, I was finally able to breathe and relax. Afterward, we all agreed to one more happy hour at our favorite restaurant and said our goodbyes. It was hard to have those last conversations with everyone, but it was a last great night.

On Saturday, I spent the day exploring D.C. with my family since my sister hadn’t been here before, and it had been years since my mom had visited. We went to the Lincoln Memorial, the Smithsonian, the WWII memorial and paid our respects at Arlington cemetery. It was a great day with my family, and I am super happy they were able to visit. It was the first time they could visit and see where I have been living and working for the past 2 years. I hope they visit again soon so we can see D.C. together again.

This was a tough week with the presentation and the end of the internship. Since last week I have been working hard on preparing the presentation. I revised it multiple times after getting feedback on it. After so many hours, we finally presented on Friday, which was bittersweet. Yes, I finished the presentation, which has been stressing me out this week, but it was time to say goodbye to everyone. It was hard to say goodbye to everyone later that night. I have spent the past 10 weeks getting to know every one of the interns, and it felt like I was leaving part of my family. We held many game/movie nights and potlucks and went out to explore D.C., which made the summer so fun. I wish all the interns the best of luck with school or work after this summer, and I hope to see everyone again soon at Physcon!

I would like to thank SPS for accepting me into the internship and making it unique. Also, I want to thank Brad, Mikayla, and Kayla for everything they did for us. For assigning us so well to our programs and setting up some of the events we did this summer. Everything they did made the internship so fun and couldn’t have been done without them.

Finally, I would like to thank my mentor, Dr. Nimisha Kumari, for everything she has taught me this summer. I learned a lot and can’t wait to use it in future endeavors. I had a lot of fun working with you this summer; thank you for everything!