Engineering Coop/Paid Internship- Radio Astronomy/Technology

National Radio Astronomy Observatory/Central Development Laboratory (CDL).

 

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) and is the flagship radio telescope organization in the US. The CDL is a National Research Laboratory at NRAO funded by the National Science Foundation and is the largest laboratory dedicated radio astronomy engineering research in the US. Our mission is to support the evolution of NRAO facilities by developing the technologies and expertise critical for the next-generation of radio astronomy instruments. CDL technology is integral to all NRAO telescopes and to other radio telescopes around the world. CDL maintains a staff of approximately fifty personnel organized into teams of engineers and technicians working across crucial radio telescope technologies.

The Central Development Laboratory (CDL) at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) seeks electrical engineering and computer science/engineering co-op students (undergraduate and graduate) to work in our design teams to develop instrumentation technology for the next generation of radio telescope. Our technology is used on the ALMA millimeter/sub-millimeter wave telescope in Chile, the Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico, and in observatories around the world to study exoplanet formation, black holes, stellar and galaxy formation and evolution, and to search for chemical precursors for life in the universe. The selected co-op student(s) will, depending on skills and interest, work with and learn from experts on our digital design team, our millimeter/sub-millimeter receivers team, our ALMA front end support team, our antennas and electromagnetics team, or our spectrum management team. The lab is the world leader in the application of many technologies used in radio astronomy. Learning objectives for our co-ops are to:

·        Learn industry best practices for engineering design and testing,

·        Learn to work on a professional multi-disciplinary team,

·        Learn how engineering supports scientific exploration.

 

Individual assignments will depend on knowledge, experience, and interest, and could include:

·        Digital circuit design, implementation and testing.

·        FPGA programming (Verilog) and testing.

·        RF circuit design, implementation and testing.

·        Antenna/RF design and analysis, and testing.

·        Signal processing algorithm development.

·        Software development and testing.

·        Test and evaluation of millimeter-wave receivers, antennas, and electromagnetic structures.