Information for Prospective Graduate Students

Considering graduate studies with the Radio Astronomy division of ISIS?

Let us share with you our top 6 reasons why you should investigate us further.

1) An Interactive and Experienced Group

While ISIS is new (officially formed in 2009), many of the people have been around for awhile. Between all the members, we have decades of experience from which we invite you to draw upon. We believe ideas grow more productively and efficiently in an interactive environment. As a member of the Institute, you will not only have ready access to your chosen supervisor, but also to the other members of the Institute.

2) Project Diversity

There is a huge variety of projects available to graduate students. As you would expect, we have a number of astronomy projects ranging from studying the space environment near the Earth to the far reaches of the Universe. All projects within the ISIS Radio Astronomy division are related to Radio Astronomy, but they are not strictly astronomy projects. If your interest lies more in instrumentation, check out our research in Electrical and Computer Engineering . Besides world class astronomy observations, the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory is also heavily involved in instrument development as well. Interested in a combination of instrumentation and observation? That can certainly be achieved within in our group. We invite you to investigate our research interests further here.

3) Research Facilities

All of the different research groups within the Institute maintain a high standard of computing and research facilities. By joining the Radio Astronomy division of ISIS, you can be sure to have access to quality research equipment suited to your needs.

4) Support Staff

Huh, you say? This is more important than you might think. Having knowledgable (and nice!) people around that can help you with your computing problems or figuring out where and when to submit your scholarship application is actually very important to a good graduate student experience. Fortunately for us, we have some of the best in the university.

5) Financial Support

We encourage all students to apply for both internal and external funding (see http://www.ucalgary.ca/phas/support/). In addition to a good graduate stipend, you will have opportunities to travel to conferences and research facilities commensurate with your graduate level and experience (all graduate student members of the Institute are expected to travel to, and present at, at least one conference per year).

6) The City and the Mountains

Your graduate experience can be as much influenced by the city you live in as the people you work with. Calgary has it all - interesting cultural activities ranging from folk festivals to Broadway productions, as well being located less than an hour drive to the Rocky Mountains where you will find fantastic hiking, skiing, and whitewater playgrounds. Whether you are an urbanite, prefering the leisure of interesting coffee shops and bookstores, or an adrenaline junky, prefering the rush of outdoor pursuits, Calgary has something for you.

We hope we have piqued your interest in our group. Please take some time to look around our site and investigate us further. We encourage you to contact our graduate students (both present and past) as you will likely get the most accurate information about your potential graduate experience from them. For additional (detailed) information about the graduate program, we direct you to the Physics and Astronomy Graduate page . Of course, if you have any questions for the faculty members of the Institute, feel free to contact us. We welcome questions directly to individual researchers or to our administrator, Bethany Holmes, who can help with more general questions.

We look forward to hearing from you!