Where and When?

The 2024 GRAD-MAP Winter Workshop took place online (over Zoom) in January 2024.

Cost

The Winter Workshop has no fee. Participants need only have internet connection for the duration of the workshop.

Eligibility

Any undergraduate student at a US institution potentially interested in pursuing a career/graduate school in physics or astronomy and who supports the GRAD-MAP mission may apply. Preference is given to students from institutions without significant undergraduate research opportunities, including community colleges. Students who identify as belonging to historically marginalized groups (including African-American, Latinx, and Native American) are strongly encouraged to apply.

Applications for the Winter Workshop will open at the beginning of November.​

Professional Development

Perhaps the most important component of the Workshop is the professional development that the students take part in.

  • Practical, honest discussions about getting internships, getting into graduate school, and career options with a PhD in astronomy or physics.
  • Development of skills beyond research, such as writing application essays or giving good presentations.
  • Discussing the real and unique challenges that underrepresented minorities may face.

We navigate these discussions through facilitated seminars or panels and through informal conversations throughout the Workshop.

Scientific Computing with Python

We lead tutorials and breakout sessions on the open-source, high-utility language Python, using the Anaconda distribution and the Jupyter notebook system. Our tutorials are interactive, geared toward the new-to-coding learner, and adapted from the Goddard Python Bootcamp. Our tutorials are meant to introduce students to Python, show them examples of its application, and empower them to continue to practice it on their own, either independently or as part of a research project.

Research Projects

All Winter Workshop participants carry out a mini-research project under the mentorship of physics and astronomy researchers. Past projects have ranged across many sub-disciplines, including cosmology, stellar astrophysics, planetary science, materials science, atomic physics, plasma physics, and high energy astrophysics. All mentors and students are given guidance on building solid mentor-mentee relationships based on the University of Wisconsin’s Research Mentoring resources. At the end of the Workshop, students give a final presentation summarizing what they did and learned.

Tours of Local Scientific Facilities

All tours will be held virtually for Winter Workshop 2024. The Washington, DC area is home to many laboratories and scientific facilities, which offer many opportunities for undergraduate and graduate research for UMD students, summer internships, and even careers. Over the past years, we have visited the following facilities:

  • National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST)
  • NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
  • Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
  • National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank


The GRAD-MAP Summer Scholars are selected from GRAD-MAP Winter Workshop alumni to participate in an enhanced, 10 week long, paid summer research program held at UMD, College Park. The Summer Scholars Program is meant to expand upon the experiences of the Winter Workshop (e.g., research skill building, cohort facilitation, and science identity development) through full research projects.

Applications for Summer 2024 are now open! They are due Friday, March 15th, at 5PM ET.