Current Fellows (2026-27)
Dennis Tercero Macua
Dennis Tercero Macua is a Masters Student in Mechanical Engineering.
This project will provide undergraduate students with the opportunity to contribute directly to NASA’s Ultraviolet Explorer (UVEX) mission, a next-generation space telescope designed to conduct the first modern all-sky ultraviolet survey of the universe. Working at UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL), students will support the calibration and testing efforts that ensure UVEX can produce accurate scientific data once in orbit. As members of the UVEX calibration team, students will gain hands-on experience with space instrumentation, cleanroom operations, vacuum systems, electronics, data acquisition, and engineering design. They will participate in activities ranging from CAD modeling and hardware assembly to detector testing, thermal-vacuum experiments, and scientific data analysis. Students will also collaborate with engineers and scientists working across multiple disciplines, gaining insight into the development of a NASA flight mission from concept to launch. A central goal of this project is to provide students with meaningful ownership of real engineering and research tasks rather than isolated laboratory exercises. Through mentorship, technical training, and direct participation in mission-critical activities, students will develop valuable skills in problem-solving, communication, systems engineering, and scientific research. By the end of the program, students will have contributed to the development and validation of hardware supporting an active NASA mission while gaining practical experience that prepares them for careers in aerospace engineering, space science, national laboratories, and advanced research.
Fatima Yousuf
Fatima Yousuf is a Ph.D. Student in Physics.
The Sun is entirely made of super-hot, electrically charged gas called plasma. Within the sun, plasma moves around and generates electrical currents and magnetic fields. Sunspots are temporary, dark, and relatively cool patches on the Sun's surface caused by intense, concentrated magnetic fields that inhibit heat from the solar interior from reaching the surface. When magnetic energy is finally released around sunspots, this causes a massive, sudden explosion on the Sun's surface, releasing intense bursts of radiation, energy, and high-speed particles into space. These “explosions” are commonly called solar flares. The fast-moving electrons released by solar flares travelling into space can also emit radio waves called Type III solar radio bursts. Solar flares and type III solar radio bursts are quite frequent, occurring multiple times per day. However, there are few spacecraft monitoring the sun and collecting data on these radio bursts. The main relevant spacecraft operating today are Solar Orbiter, WIND, STEREO-A, and Parker Solar Probe. Several studies have attempted to create automatic detection algorithms of Type III solar radio bursts. However, these studies have shown that doing so can be difficult as solar radio bursts can be distorted and blurred in data. Our research aims to create a catalogue of Type III solar radio bursts observed by Parker Solar Probe (PSP) that can eventually be used to more extensively train and validate automatic detection algorithms, and eventually improve their accuracy and reliability.
Felix Hagemann
Felix Hagemann is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Space Sciences Laboratory.
We physicists can only see the world through the eyes of our detectors – the better we understand our detectors, the more information we can extract from their signals to uncover the mysteries of our universe. In the case of the Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI), a NASA Small Explorer Mission scheduled to launch in 2027, we will study astrophysical sources in the soft-gamma ray sky through the eyes of 16 high-purity germanium cross-strip detectors. These detectors provide excellent energy resolution and the 3D-position reconstruction required to operate as a Compton telescope.\n The accurate description of the detector response relies on simulations. At the Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL), I developed a detector simulation framework for the COSI flight model that produces realistic detector outputs and supports calibration studies by simulating the underlying physics, charge transport and read-out electronics. Supported by the Discovery Fellowship, I am forming a small research cluster of undergraduate students at SSL to support these COSI detector simulation efforts throughout the academic year. We will validate and constrain key parameters of the simulation framework against available detector calibration data to ensure physically realistic simulations. We will then use this validated framework to run large-scale simulation studies to support calibrations of the COSI payload. Ultimately, these efforts will help improve data analysis methods and enhance the discovery potential through the eyes of our COSI detectors.