🤝 Curiouscity Partnership

🌟 About Dr. Raja Guha Thakurta

Dr. Guha, is a renowned Astrophysicist, who has a passion for bringing the cosmos alive for students of all walks of life. He is currently a professor at the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at UCSC and his research is focused on the formation and evolution of galaxies – specifically, their accretion/cannibalism history, dark matter content, chemical enrichment, and star formation history. One approach is the study of the local "fossil record." He runs several organizations to promote science among kids from rural India and children from all over the world – such as Shadow the Scientist and the Science Internship Program. He works with the Hubble telescope and does live online sessions.

🚀 Creating Equity in STEAM (CrEST)

Dr. Guha and his colleagues from University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) run three large STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) experiential learning programs that are housed within a department called Creating Equity in STEAM (CrEST). This work has a strong focus on broadening participation in academia across the US and the rest of the world.

The three main CrEST programs are described below and one-page flyers for this year's edition of the programs are attached – please click on the links below for more information, or look at the posters for how to register for these programs.

🤝 Curiouscity Partnership

We are proud to announce Curiouscity's partnership with Dr. Raja Guha Thakurta and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

🔭 Shadow the Scientists (StS)

A few times a month, StS offers free online experiential learning sessions for students at any/all academic levels, educators, and other enthusiasts. During these sessions, the participants eavesdrop via Zoom on researchers while the researchers are actively conducting research. StS started in astronomy (astronomers using some of the world's most powerful telescopes) but we have expanded the program to include other scientific disciplines such as stem cell biology, tropical forest ecology, volcanology, oceanography/paleoclimatology, solar physics, glass physics, rare isotope beams,and Indigenous epistemology. Plans are underway to soon schedule StS sessions on gravitational wave astronomy and telescope engineering. We are starting to expand StS beyond science. The StS YouTube channel contains recordings of past StS sessions. Here is a brief StS promotional video. One of the pedagogical innovations we are currently exploring is the use of Google's NotebookLM large language model to improve students' accessibility of the highly technical and often jargon-laden recordings of StS sessions.

💻 Python and Research (PyaR)

Three times a year, PyaR offers a free online (Zoom+Slack) Python computer programming tutorial that is set in the context of astrophysics research. Also available are recordings in a few languages of a past R computer programming tutorial that is set in the context of research in computational biology. These tutorials are appropriate for high school students, college students, more advanced students, educators, and others who are interested in learning coding in the context of research. Our UCSC Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics colleagues are in the process of collaborating with our PyaR team to develop a third tutorial: Python in the context of particle collider physics. The next PyaR sessions will take place in the fall.

🎓 Science Internship Program (SIP)

SIP is a fee-based program that is primarily for high school students aged 14–17. About a third of our high school students are on full scholarships which cover tuition, room, board, and, in some cases, transportation. The program is open to students from all over the world. SIP runs for 8 weeks each summer from the middle of June through early August. The program engages high school students (and a few community college/college students and teachers/pre-service teachers) in university-level open-ended research projects in a variety of academic disciplines. SIP interns work in small groups of 3 or more and each group is supervised by a PhD student, postdoc, and/or research staff at UCSC. Here is a brief SIP promotional video. While the SIP 2025 summer program ended a couple of weeks ago, the application portal for SIP 2026 will open in early 2026.