The Undergraduate ALFALFA Team - ALFALFAsurvey/ALFALFA_Legacy GitHub Wiki

The Undergraduate ALFALFA Team (UAT) is an NSF-sponsored program to promote long-term collaborative research opportunities for faculty and students from a wide range of public and private primarily undergraduate institutions within the context of extragalactic radio astronomy. Partnering with Arecibo and Green Bank Observatories, the UAT has worked with (36) institutions, including more than 500 undergraduates and 36 faculty, offering annual workshops, observing runs, research projects (academic year and summer), and presentation of results and networking at national meetings.

The UAT was established in conjunction with ALFALFA (Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA), the extragalactic HI blind legacy survey project originated and coordinated by Riccardo Giovanelli and Martha Haynes at Cornell University (AST-0607007, AST-1107390). From the outset of ALFALFA, the PIs sought to open the project to undergraduate participation. The UAT was conceived in 2004 by a small group of faculty members from several New York and Pennsylvania undergraduate liberal arts institutions, plus the University of Puerto Rico. One-day workshops were hosted at Union College in Schenectady, New York in 2005 and 2006, which introduced attendees to ALFALFA and the possibility of working on related research while maintaining positions at primarily small, somewhat isolated undergraduate institutions. The success of these workshops inspired an NSF proposal to form an expanded UAT program with a workshop at Arecibo. Starting with 14 institutions near the beginning of the ALFALFA survey (AST-0724918/0725267/0725380), the UAT increased in size to 19 members in 2012 under AST-1211005, to 24 members in 2020 under AST-1637339, and, as of 2025, 22 members under AST-2045369. Over seventeen project years of partnering with Arecibo and Green Bank Observatories, the UAT has promoted peer mentoring and training, enhanced faculty and student research in small physics and astronomy programs, encouraged student pathways to STEM careers, and included women and minorities in leadership roles.

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References:

Link to Crone-Odekon 2021 AAS Education Committee Blog post about the UAT

Koopmann et al. 2020, 'Integrating Undergraduate Research and Faculty Development in a Legacy Astronomy Research Project', BAAS, 51, 69

Troischt, P., Koopmann, R. A., et al. 2016, 'The Undergraduate ALFALFA Team: A Collaborative Model for Undergraduate Research in Major Long-term Astronomy Projects', Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly, Summer 2016

Odekon, M. C., Koopmann, R. A., O'Donoghue, A., Haynes, M. P. 2015, 'Harvesting ALFALFA', Mercury, Vol 44, No 3., 31

Link to ADS Public Library of Undergraduate ALFALFA Team Papers about the Project Model

Link to ADS Public Library of Undergraduate Team Publications