Black Hole Explorers Internship
The Black Hole Explorers (BHEX) Intern Program is a paid internship where students engage in science and/or engineering projects related to the Black Hole Explorer mission
The 2027 Black Hole Explorers Program will be open for applicants in early 2027
Apply through Smithsonian SOLAA: http://solaa.si.edu
(create a SOLAA account, click "start your application", and search for "Black Hole Explorers")
The internship dates are expected to be June 7 - August 16, 2027. Students will be supervised by a Smithsonian or Harvard scientist for the duration of their appointment. Students are expected to work at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian for the full duration of the program. We house our interns in Harvard's graduate student dormitory facilities. The Black Hole Explorers program coordinator is Dr. Daniel Palumbo.
Undergraduate students interested in astronomy, astrophysics, physics, computer science, machine learning, or engineering related to BHEX are encouraged to apply. We provide a wide range of projects to our interns.
Previous projects include:
2026
Owen Gartlan (Grinnell): Pattern Speed Profiles Across Black Hole Spin & Accretion Disk Properties
Hina Suzuki (UA): Photon Ring Radial Substructures
Cyrus Clabeaux (Stony Brook): Photon Rings - Beyond Kerr
Carl Audric Guia (Harvard): Beyond M87*: Accretion States and Spins from Horizon-Scale Polarimetry
2025
Will Guan (Harvard): Phenomenology and Parameter Inference of Lensed Emission in the Kerr Geometry
Braden Nowicki (UMD): Measuring the Black Hole and Accretion Parameters of Sagittarius A* using a Semi-Analytic Model
Kratika Mazde (IAP): On the Physical Origins of the Millimeter Fundamental Plane in Active Galactic Nuclei
Vadim Bernshteyn (UA): Polarimetry with BHEX: β2 Modes as Probes of Horizon-Scale Emission Geometry
Gabriella Montano (Northeastern): A Novel Comb Generator for Frequency Phase Transfer
2024
Sol Gutiérrez-Lara (Harvard): The Role of Interferometric Phase in Measuring Black Hole Photon Rings
Aditya Tamar (MPIfR): Photon Ring Polarimetry with Next-generation Black Hole Imaging. I. M87*
Elizabeth Kozlov (Princeton): Foundations for Spin Measurement of Sagittarius A*: Photon Ring Analysis and Scattering Characterization
Alice Zhang (Stanford): Accessing a New Population of Supermassive Black Holes with BHEX
Kimberly Alonso (ASU): Optical Downlink Terminals for BHEX
The Black Hole Explorers program is funded through a generous donation from Mr. Michael Tuteur and Amy Tuteur, MD
