URIA 2004
The Undergraduate Research Institute in Astrophysics (URIA) program at SC State University has been providing an opportunity for undergraduate students to participate in hands-on astrophysics research each summer since 1998.
This summer there were four underaduate students, all from SCSU, and one high school student in the program. As in past summers, the students were grouped into teams lead by a faculty mentor.
Dr. Smith's Team
Foreground L - R:
Constance Ray, Jennifer Sanders and Wanda Moses
Dr. Smith's team performed an analysis of the two-dimensional correlation function, based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 2 (DR2). The sample consists of 118, 887 galaxies, which covers an area of 3324 square degrees. With the data, the team plotted the correlation function to observe the effect of peculiar velocities.
Final Paper 
Dr. Cash's Team
Deidrick Capers (with Wanda Moses)
The focus of this summer's research was the modeling of magnetic cataclysmic variables using Interactive Data Language (IDL) software. A basic IDL program designed for this specific purpose was already in existence; created by Dr. Cash and previous research students under her supervision. The ultimate goal of this summer's work was to improve upon the already existing program and extend it to a point where it could be efficiently used for other applications.
Final Paper
Dr. Payne's Team
Kayla Harward
Kayla Harward, a high school student at the South Carolina Governors School for Science & Mathematics, collected solar data at various frequencies from four radio telescopes and from two x-ray telescopes . Correlations between the data sets were confirmed to have been caused by solar activity by viewing the optical pictures of the solar disk and by checking the solar activity levels on www.spaceweather.com.
